15th Feb 2024: Astro Pixel Processor 2.0.0-beta29 released - macOS native File Chooser, macOS CMD-Q fixed, read-only Fits on network fixed and other bug fixes
7th December 2023: added payment option Alipay to purchase Astro Pixel Processor from China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and other countries where Alipay is used.
Starting in November 2018 I made a pretty early start with capturing the Horsehead Nebula. At that time I could start shooting at 23.30 when the nebula was just above the rooftop of my observatory. I was wondering if the rotation of the camera was in such a way that I could make a mosaic containing both the Horsehead Nebula as well as M42. And it was! So I started my "winter project": a 3 pane mosaic, containing RGB and Ha data. Normally I wouldn't start such a project if I wasn't sure that APP is able to make this mosaic possible.
The last frames I shot at the end of February 2019 concluded the project –due to many, many cloudy nights– and I ended up with 518 light frames, divided equally over the mosaic and in total integration time of almost 48 hours.
Here's the first result of this project –my longest so far–. I'm sure I'll start over processing the data again and again until I'm really satisfied with the final result. I would like to give Mabula a big thumbs up for APP; I also tried to register the panes in PixInsight, but without a good result. As a matter of fact: it didn't come up with a result at all.
Great job! Can you share the details of the equipment you used and the exposure parameters?
Thanks
Great job! Can you share the details of the equipment you used and the exposure parameters?
Thanks
I shot the frames with a 80 mm F5 APO SW Esprit mounted on a SW EQ8, SBIG STF8300M CCD and Baader filters.
For all panes I shot 10 minute frames of Ha, with a total of between 7 and 8 hours per pane. The RGB frames were taken with an exposure time of 3 or 5 minutes, with a total of at least 2 hours per channel per pane. I ended up with 518 frames in total, with an integration time of 47 hours and 45 minutes. Guiding was done using an 60 mm guide scope and a Lodestar guider cam using PHD. Frame acquisition with Sequence Generator Pro. For the core of M42 –which was completely washed out– I shot 1 minute frames in both RGB and Ha and blended with the original frames using HDR.
