Galactic Center Mosaic

[Ignacio]

Last Friday, I tried for the first time this combination: a full-frame canon 6D with an old SMC Takumar 75 mm f/4 lens (which had proven to be a great performer with APS-C size sensors). I targeted the galactic center, due to its perfect position in the sky this time of the year from my location.

The lens was stopped down to f/5.6, and 12x5-minute shots were taken on each pane. Although there is some distortion towards the corners of the frame, which in part I attribute to a tilted lens mount as one side is considerably worse than the other, the overall performance is very good.

The 3x1-pane mosaic registration and assembly proved to be quite a challenge, due to optical geometric distortion. I ended up using ImageSolver and MosaicByCoordinates. These are remarkable and powerful tools to deal with wide field mosaics. My appreciation to Andres Pozo for such impressive contributions!

I like the final result very much, and hope you do too.

low-res with data: http://www.pampaskies.com/gallery3/Wide-Field/GalacticCenterMosaic_lowres

hi-res: http://www.pampaskies.com/gallery3/var/fulres/GalacticCenterMosaic_hires.JPG

best,
Ignacio

[Enzo De Bernardini]

Amazing!

[marekc]

That's a very nice image! I liked the south-up orientation; it made for a fun time identifying objects like M8, M24, M16/17, etc, compared to the usual `north-up' view that we have here in the northern hemisphere!

- Marek

[Alejandro Tombolini]

Wow!, very well done Ignacio. Congrats!.

Saludos. Alejandro.

[kolec]

Perfekt

[Ignacio]

Thank you Marek, Ale, Enzo and Kolec. Your feedback is much appreciated.

Marek: As you correctly pointed out, this is how we see it from the southern hemisphere. I though about rotating it, but I like how the Antares complex with the "blue horsehead" is framed in the southern view. Is funny how the brain works in this way, isn't it?

best
Ignacio

[Juan Conejero]

I normally don't comment on Gallery images, but this time I can't help myself. Absolutely wonderful!

[Ignacio]

Thank you, Juan, that means a lot.

Ignacio

[Andres.Pozo]

A really great image Ignacio. I have never seen the galactic center like this.

[Ignacio]

Thank you, Andrés, you made it possible with those impressive tools.

BTW, I cannot plate-solve the mosaic with ImageSolver. Could it be due to the Mercator projection? I tried many combinations: thousands of star, hundreds of stars, no distortion, 3rd order, 5th order, linear stack, fully process image, you name it. Each panel solves nicely, though, that's why I suspect it could be the projection.

Many thanks,
Ignacio

[AstroScience]

Ignacio, trully incredible result. High resolution image is more than impressive. Wallhanger for sure, well done.

[Andres.Pozo]

BTW, I cannot plate-solve the mosaic with ImageSolver. Could it be due to the Mercator projection? I tried many combinations: thousands of star, hundreds of stars, no distortion, 3rd order, 5th order, linear stack, fully process image, you name it. Each panel solves nicely, though, that's why I suspect it could be the projection.

Yes, you are right. ImageSolver can not solve wide field images which are not in gnomonic projection.
However, the result of MosaicByCoordinates is already solved. It has all the FITS keywords necessary for AnnotateImage. If you have cropped or resampled the image you can use CopyCoordinates for translating the coordinates matrix between both images.

[Ignacio]

Great, thank you Andrés, I will try that and come back to you if I have any problems.

Ignacio

[Ignacio]

Andrés: the CopyCoordinates approach worked perfectly! Thanks.

Ignacio

[JoLo]

Ignacio - one word, three letters - WOW.