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Nebula
IC341, IC353, IC354, IC360, M35 mosaic test


Object : IC 341 Nebula
Coordinates/Direction : RA: 03h42m, DEC: +22o02'
Object size : 135' x 135'
Object magnitude : -
More to know : The Sky:
https://theskylive.com/ sky/ deepsky/ ic341-object

Nebula area

IC341, IC353, IC354, IC360, M35 mosaic test, 2024 (Click on the image to get one in full resolution, opens in a new window)

I got some time left over one night. I decided to use that to do a mosaic test. I chose the area around Pleiades, M35. It's a lot of nebulosity around it. Very wide area, my 300 mm lens has a fov of 6.5x4 degrees. The objects are together twice that big. I centered each photo on each nebula's center, not a 4x4 mosaic. As a bonus I got the open cluster M35 in the same picture.


IC341, IC353, IC354, IC360, M35 mosaic test, 2024

IC341, IC353, IC354, IC360, M35 mosaic test, 2024 (Click on the image to get one in full resolution, opens in a new window)

The image is about 50 Mpix big !

Date : 2024-08-31
Time (UT) :  -
Mount : SkyWatcher EQ6 Pro, beltdrive modified (DIY 2019)
Guide : QHY5 camera with 200 mm f/3.5 lens
Lens/telescope : Pentax 645 300 mm ED f/4 (medium format lens)
Corrector/Barlow : -
Field (FOV) : 6.8x4.5o (full frame) before crop
camera : Canon 6D, QE=0.5, full frame, 20 Mpixel, 14 bit
camera temperature: About 6o C above surrounding temperature
Film/CCD : Raw, Cr2
Filter : none
Control system: Mount, camera, focus, guide (Ekos) controlled by Astroberry (KStars/Ekos Linux)
Exp. time : 4x30x30 seconds, iso1600, every third dithered
Image process tool : Siril, Gimp, Hugin, Irfanview
Processing : synthetic bias, flat, astro metric color calibration
Weather : Clear sky, temperature 12 degree Celcius
Site : Sweden, Stockholm, Hagsätra. Bortle 9
Free view Az: 20o to 90o, 165o to 185o, Alt: 20o to 55o
Comment : These are very short exposures and doesn't show much nebulosity. But the goal was only to test how to do mosaicing. Taking the photos isn't complicated, not more than usual at least. But to stitch them together is more difficult. I tested with Gimp, it can be done but it's complicated when the optics has some slight distortion and the image also has some rotation that must be corrected for. There are some software that are specialized on this, Astro Pixel Processor. But I wanted to do the test with some free software. I use Hugin for daytime photographs, maybe it could be used. After some struggling with all the settings I got good results from it. With better quality of the photos It could be very good. But needs many hours of exposures and a H-Alpha sensitive camera.
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