Seamless Mosaics in PixInsight: Step-by-Step Guide to Get Stunning Results

[@astrodad-simonb277]

I did this for the first time ever and it worked so well !!! Thank you ! Ha only but now I can start on the other channels - thank you !

[@davidf9494]

A very well organized and presented tutorial! You have a new subscriber . Looking forward to watching your previous videos and ones in the future.Clear Skies!

[@setiv2]

@@davidf9494 be sure to grab my script repository too, I may be biased but they are pretty nice :)

[@desmcmorrow2978]

Fab! Clear and comprehensive. Many thanks. Des

[@michaelrushalko6040]

Great video, let me ask how do you capture each panel? Are all panels captured in one night, or one panel per night? I tend to run 30 mins per panel, then repeat throughout the night. I am still experimenting how I should go about it to control the gradient and at the moment only using OSC camera due to limited clear nights.

[@setiv2]

I shoot one panel tmto completion then the next. It doesnt matter if it spans multiple nights. It normally takes me multiple nights to shoot a single pane. That is why gradient correction per pane is important incase the moon, sky glow, light pollution, etc is different from pane to pane

[@robertovolpini9359]

thank you so much for this video, thanks to this now I assembled my first mosaic

[@setiv2]

Congrats!!!

[@RigoFromSpain]

Thanks for your great tutorials, greetings fromSouthern Spain👍

[@setiv2]

Glad you like them!

[@sergiocruzjimenez8804]

Solucionaste mis dolores de cabeza. Maravilloso. Un 10!

[@mreddick786]

Thank you soooo much. I could not figure it out for the life of me.

[@ridetheliger4176]

Thank you, very useful. I missed the linear fit…

[@setiv2]

Timestamps are in the description Linear fit at 3:13

[@ridetheliger4176]

@@setiv2 I mean I missed it in my processing…

[@setiv2]

Oh! Depending on how forgiving the pedastal from image to image is you may not even notice it. How did yours turn out without linear fits?

[@ridetheliger4176]

@@setiv2 Was quite happy with it at the end, but now I will go back and redo it. It was an accidental mosaic of M42 and the Horsehead. Haven’t really planned for it, so I had to crop quite a bit. I had problems with some steps in brightness, which I managed to handle. I think with linear fit it will be much better on the fainter parts.

[@janelubenskyi1177]

This is such a helpful script…thank you🌌

[@stephenjonesbodon]

Not a guru. I have done two mosaics in PI. However I did channel combination on my RGB panels separately and then combined the for panels. Crikey it didnt even dawn on me until I saw your video to combine red, blue and green separately...derr. My photo did turn out fine. I have experimented and actualy processed each panel and joined them. DBE fixed the gradients. Great video mate. Thank you

[@setiv2]

Hope your next mosaic goes nice and smoothly! Clear skies!

[@rossblezard574]

This workflow is so clean, thank you for sharing. I had one question - after I have created my S / H / O channel mosaics I go to combine channels and they are slightly different pixel sizes, have you seen this / how can I avoid it. I was careful to apply cropping to panels collectively, so I am not too sure what happened (maybe distortion models changed things?). It isnt a big deal as I can just star align... but I dont know why I need to and that bothers me :)

[@setiv2]

Thanks! It may stem all the way back to wbpp. Do you have distortion correction checked? If you dont know where or what check out my wbpp video

[@rossblezard574]

@@setiv2 It was indeed WBPP - easily fixed - thanks again!

[@setiv2]

And it will fix all your future wtacking alignments too :)

[@Arcteek]

Awesome! APP does that in a few c!ics, but still it's nice to be able to do that in PI

[@hxnduke]

Super helpful and worked like a charm, thank you! Just one question - so it looks like you didn't do any cropping of the individual masters to get rid of any stacking artifacts prior to merging them together right? If there's noticeable stacking artifacts along the edge, should I go a head and remove them first (before DBE)?

[@setiv2]

I used the autocropped images. 100% yes you should remove stacking artifacts prior to gradient removal, they through off the calculation really badly. I do say I also have ADBE that should simplify gradient removal :)

[@hxnduke]

@@setiv2 Yeah I just tried without cropping and it definitely was bad! And yes, I've been using your ADBE script - super convenient and worked so well! I've got another question. So I'm doing a 2x2 mosaic for the Heart and Soul Nebula and the process described here worked great. However, I also had a lot of data acquired previously for each subject separately using the same system. So I just tried repeating the process with the 2 addition masters (one for Heart and one for Soul). Everything looks good along the border but I'm getting elongated stars in areas where additional data are included. I checked the individual .ra files and they don't have that issue, so this is definitely introduced via GradientMergeMosaic. Any idea what might have caused this?

[@setiv2]

@hxnduke run staralignment first. You may not have had distortion correction on in wbpp (which you def should have enabled if you dont. It is not on by default)

[@hxnduke]

@@setiv2 You're right - Distortion correction was not on. I have no idea what that does - is this explained anywhere? Before I go back and redo WBPP for all of them, what should I try Star Alignment on?

[@setiv2]

@hxnduke yes try staralignment first. I have a back to basics video for wbpp as well

[@andysmith4050]

the detail is insane.... what scope was this

[@setiv2]

Orion 120ST , it is a F5 achro refrac

[@aaronfreimark7979]

Straightforward and clear! One question: when working with multiple channels (Ha, OIII), does the Mosaic by Coordinates align consistently? Do we need a StarAlign on the separate mosaics before DynamicCrop?

[@setiv2]

I found that it aligns consistantly, but star align is so fast if you are worried about it might as well do it after you have your big mosaic masters together

[@aaronfreimark7979]

@@setiv2 Thinking through this a little, since WBPP will align each channel in a panel perfectly, Mosaic by Coordinates should create the same result from each channel. So no StarAlign needed. I think.

[@setiv2]

Correct. I never had any issue with it being off, but if you didnt turn on distortion correction in wbpp then you may get cumulative errors in thee alognment. Worth just checking your corners like any image you take

[@janelubenskyi1177]

Would you be able to crest a script for moon mosaics 🤗

[@setiv2]

There is a reason why programs like PTGui cost sooo much to do automated mosaics like that!

[@BigBadLoneWolf]

Pixinsight is not finding the dnalinearfit script in the folder, no matter what I do

[@setiv2]

that is after you tried adding it as a feature script? you just click select folder, not a specific file

[@bobmiller6918]

Hi, I'm really liking your video's!! I'm having an issue with installing the dnalinear script. I have it in the PI script folder, but when I go to Feature Script to add it, none of my Java Scripts are there. Is there some setting to get them to show?

[@setiv2]

I never store my manually downloaded scripts in the pixinsight folder. When pixinsight updates it will overwrite everything in the C:/PrgramFiles/PixInsight folder. Best to make a dedicated folder somewhere else. Then when you go to feature scripts you will need to point it to that new folder you made.

[@bobmiller6918]

@@setiv2 , thank you!! I'll give that a try!!

[@garyreynolds1558]

Like the video but knew it probably wasn't going to work for me when it explained how to download the dnaLinear fit script. Sure enought been trying to install it for 2 hours with no luck. I click on the link, then download it. Check the download folder and it's there. However, it doesn't show up when I try to add it through Feature Scripts.

[@setiv2]

Weird. Can you email me some screenshots? [e-mail]

[@rossblezard574]

I also have this - you have to copy it from your downloads folder the to pixinsight/src/script folder then it will "see" it

[@malcolqwe2]

isn't Photometric Mosaic the preferred method these days?

[@setiv2]

No, i disagree with that comment on astrobin. GradientMergeMosaic was recently redone by pixinsight team so is still active. Also photometricmosaic you have to do in strips instead of all at once

[@malcolqwe2]

@@setiv2 ok then, I was unaware that Gradient Merge Mosaic had been updated. Thanks 🤩

[@setiv2]

@@malcolqwe2 yeah about... geesh 4 or 5 months ago they overhauled big time. Used to take literally like an hour and now it is very fast. I think with 1.8.9-1 maybe was when it was overhauled. So it is very much still relevant. Like I said photmetric mosaic you have to build up strips and then merge those strips. I never had good results with it

[@malcolqwe2]

@@setiv2 I've had great success with Photometric Mosaic but I look forward to trying out the new Gradient Merge Mosaic. I never would have if I hadn't seen this video, thanks!

[@captaincook6666]

I use MS ICE and it never fails.

[@setiv2]

Haven't heard of MS ICE. What is that?

[@captaincook6666]

@@setiv2 it's Microsoft ICE...they don't support it anymore but you can find it on the Internet. It works automatically on any set of images.. Also works on daytime panoramas. I have used it for a milky way arch too, but mainly use it for DSO mosaics.

[@walsc]

@@setiv2 Image Composite Editor, it is a Plugin for Photoshop.