Tools for Planning a Mosaic?

[twade]

To all,

In the past I've used TheSky 6 or X for planning my mosaics; however, when using the center points of the frames, I get substantial rotation which leads to "holes" in the mosaic.  For example, I'm currently working on a two frame mosaic I took of the North America Nebula and the Gamma Cygnus region.  I used a 200mm lens and  a modified 5D2 camera. Comparing both frames, the position angle (PA) matches to within 30 arc minutes.  I thought this should be close enough, but when combining them, they have a rotational angle of 6 degrees which has left one side of the mosaic unusable.  Obviously, TheSky does not compensate for the rotational angles (i.e., it just gives the same PA for both frames).  As a result of this weakness, I'm looking for software or a way to plan my mosaics so I get excellent frame to frame matches.  What software do you use or how do you plan your mosaics?

Thanks,

Wade

[chris.bailey]

Have you asked the question on the Bisque forums? I have found it works very well but have never tried it at wide FOV. Have you tried increasing the overlap?

[twade]

Chris,

Have you asked the question on the Bisque forums?

I have not.  I will give it a shot.

Have you tried increasing the overlap?

I could go 15 percent, but I would rather solve the rotation problem.  In all likelihood, I'll have to create my mosaics from wide-field shots to compensate for the true sky.  I believe Rob Gendler does it this way.

Thanks,

Wade

[ChristerS]

Hi,

Notised also a rotaion at wide field at high altitudes with The Sky X but this must be a fact from spherical geometry as at dec=0 there was no rotation, and the software cant compensate for the rotation if there is no field rotator avaliable.

BR,
/Christer

[RickS]

I haven't tried it yet, but PI includes a MosaicPlanner script.