Heart and Fishhead Mosaic

[bobharmony]

After a long break during the summer (due to a combination of weather and hip replacement) I got out in November to collect more data on this target. I shot some subs the prior year but they were a total mess and I needed to start from scratch. I was able to collect about 90 subs for each of the 2 panels and kept around 82 of them. I would have had more but failed to realize that the objective on the guide scope pretty much froze over and a lot of later subs needed to be tossed. I'm going to

I used AstroPixelProcessor to stack and assemble the mosaic, but took a different path with it. Instead of stacking the panels individually and then stitching them together, I put all the panels into one pass and built the mosaic that way using MBB set to 20% (which matched my overlap) and LNC to 1st degree with 3 iterations. It took a good 17 hours to run the process due to the large number of relationships between panels, and provided my best mosaic results to date.

I used StarTools to process the integrated stack and it was the cleanest data I have ever taken into that program. I finished with a light touch of NXT. Result includes calibration with darks, flats, dark flats, bias and the APP bad pixel map.

After my success with this data, I tried the same APP process on last years data, hoping to combine them all, but while 75% of the image cleaned up nicely the remaining 25% was totally washed out. I may keep looking into ways to recover that data at some point.

Comments/criticisms are welcome as always.

Bob

[Lady Fraktor]

Very nice Bob

[Bigzmey]

Nice capture Bob!

[messier 111]

fine catch , thx .

[Graeme1858]

Excellent Heart and Fish head Bob.

I hope the surgery went well and you're fully recovered.

Graeme

[StarHugger]

Great mosaic Bob, it opens up nice with plenty to explore once inside...

Thanks!

[Juno16]

Great image Bob!

Sounds like you did well with the surgery. Very good to hear that!
Hopefully you feel much better now, but I’m sure it was a challenging recovery.

Glad that you got out to do what you love to do finally!

Hopefully you can get back out soon!

[bobharmony]

Great image Bob!

Sounds like you did well with the surgery. Very good to hear that!
Hopefully you feel much better now, but I’m sure it was a challenging recovery.

Glad that you got out to do what you love to do finally!

Hopefully you can get back out soon!

I hope the surgery went well and you're fully recovered.

As joint replacement goes, the hip is a breeze. I did it as an outpatient and was home 6 hours after I arrived at the center. I had some restrictions for a month, then I was good to go. I'll be having the other one done in May, then I might have to see about getting the skates out!

I got in 3 hours on the Horsehead and Flame this week. Results look good, now I'm combining with last year's data and will post when I'm happy with that,

Bob

[MariusD69]

Awesome! Great job, Bob!

[Juno16]

Great image Bob!

Sounds like you did well with the surgery. Very good to hear that!
Hopefully you feel much better now, but I’m sure it was a challenging recovery.

Glad that you got out to do what you love to do finally!

Hopefully you can get back out soon!

I hope the surgery went well and you're fully recovered.

As joint replacement goes, the hip is a breeze. I did it as an outpatient and was home 6 hours after I arrived at the center. I had some restrictions for a month, then I was good to go. I'll be having the other one done in May, then I might have to see about getting the skates out!

I got in 3 hours on the Horsehead and Flame this week. Results look good, now I'm combining with last year's data and will post when I'm happy with that,

Bob

Very glad that the procedure went so well!
Man, that’s good to hear in case I am ever in that situation.
My knees are the joints that I have issues with.
At 68, I guess joint issues (among other things) are not uncommon. I’m sure that many years of distance running didn’t help either.

Great that you captured some of the Horsehead and Flame. I didn’t get the opportunity this season.
Poor weather and tress have really encroached on my view of the south. What a very special area to image!

Best of success and looking forward to your work!