Over the years I have imaged the Cone and Rosette nebulae separately. I decided to give a mosaic a try this year, 16 panels
Here's the aforementioned Cone and Rosette images:
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| Details on Flickr: https://flic.kr/p/QZyZct |
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| Details on Flickr: https://flic.kr/p/DDLM5D |
I used Asimoplan with SkyTools 3 to plan the mosaic and exported the coordinates into my acquisition software APT. I started the mosaic in late February.
Initially I captured the Hydrogen-Alpha(HA) filtered images. I "hand" assembled and blended them using Photoshop CS6. I was only able to capture 14 of 16 my first outing:
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| https://flic.kr/p/SodUhF |
After patiently waiting for the clouds to clear, I finished up the HA and moved on to the RGB. Here's panels 1-8 I captured, blended with the HA from above:
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| https://flic.kr/p/S3DR87 |
So finally on March 28 I was able to collect all remaining panels and finish the mosaic:
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| https://flic.kr/p/TnD3fQ |
16 panel mosaic
The original image measured 12583x16454 pixels and was 1.7GB in size. It has been downsized to 25% of original
Each panel consists of
HA 10x60 seconds
R-10x30 seconds
G-10x30 seconds
B-10x30 seconds
(6h 40m)
11" Celestron EdgeHD+Hyperstar
QHY163M
Optolong Filters
The Christmas Tree and Cone Nebulas can be seen on the left, while the Rosette is on the right. In addition to these more common nebulae is IC2169 in the upper left. Many more objects can be spotted in the annotated version: Cone to Rosette Nebula Annotated
[RA:+06 38 07.38 Dec:+07 29 27.31]
Resolution ........ 5.646 arcsec/pix
Rotation .......... -90.611 deg
Focal ............. 138.81 mm
Pixel size ........ 3.80 um
Field of view ..... 6d 22' 15.8" x 4d 56' 3.7"
Image center ...... RA: 06 38 07.372 Dec: +07 29 27.37
Image bounds:
top-left ....... RA: 06 27 58.836 Dec: +10 38 01.67
top-right ...... RA: 06 28 21.787 Dec: +04 16 41.18
bottom-left .... RA: 06 48 01.645 Dec: +10 41 24.51
bottom-right ... RA: 06 48 07.168 Dec: +04 20 01.63
I plan on giving some of the smaller objects more attention. I found this reflection nebula IC2169 in the top left interesting. I need to add some Luminance frames and more RGB, but here's a preview:
