I was wondering if someone out there using the mosaic wizard without for example a takometer. I was thinking to do a 2 panel mosaic with my medium format chipped camera. As this chip with the camera takes its time to download the frame I was wondering how much effort you need to put in place until the camera is aligned with the frame of the mosaic. How many tries you spend in average to rotate the camera until it matches the mosaic direction? Do you have any hints about this? Are you guys using a digital level meter that would help with the angle or is it pretty straight forward? I havent found a video or other opinions…
Hi Francesco,
If it helps I’ve always found that for all targets I can either orientate my camera/chip at 0° or 90° - that way I can easily align the chip. I’ve found that works nicely for all the mosaics I’ve done - 2, 4 and 8 pane mosaics work well.
Personally I’ve never found a need to orientate the chip any other way…
Not sure if that helps or not - hope it does!
Kit
It’s easy. I just set up a 4 panel mosaic and told the rotator to give
me 10 tries to get within 0.1 degrees (plenty good enough for 20%
overlap). It took me 5 tries to get there. SGP tells you how many
degrees to rotate and which direction. With a little practice, you can
get really good at estimating degrees and bumping it for the last
miniscule corrections. Give it a try!!!
I have found these measuring tapes. I have two telescopes where these will work. This link will bring you to a site that sells adhesive rulers. I ordered three of the 1/4" Center zero. They can be cut and wrapped around your focuser. You can wrap them anywhere. Place a pointer at zero. Use this constant (circumference in mm divided by 360). This will give you the distance per degree of rotation. multiply this constant by the degree of rotation and rotate the pointer to that number. You will be spot on. Does not work on all telescopes. The shipping is as much as the adhesive tapes. I use the white tape used to mark electrical wire for pointers. It is 1/2" wide. I cut it diagonally back and forth. The roll will make a zillion 1/2" long pointers.
get yourself a Wixey level.
It works great and is accurate to tenths of a degree which is plenty accurate enough.
I just Velcro mine to the top of my camera temporarily, zero it then manually rotate as SGP directs until I have the correct rotation then remove it (as it has a magnet underneath and im not sure how that might affect the image/camera if I left it on permanently)
My last big mosaic took 6 frames and almost 70 days to complete. The rotation required me to add a 2 mosaic frames in the middle because I didn’t overlap enough (10%). I wouldn’t worry about it.
Hi all, thanks for your answers I will check this evening how this works… hopefully Testing tonight my CCD with the mosaic wizard. Thank for your inputs!
I will check this evening how this works… hopefully