Mosaic Planning in ASIAir Version 2.0 - Easy!
Vložit
- čas přidán 26. 07. 2024
- Mosaic Planning is finally here for ASIAir users! With the 2.0 release there are a whole slew of new features to make astrophotography easier.
My Equipment:
Telescope: Celestron RASA 8
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM Pro
Mount: iOptron CEM40
Filters: 2" Baader RGB and f/2 3.5/4nm Narrowband SHO
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290MM Mini
Guide Scope: Orion 60mm Guide Scope with Helical Focuser
ZWO ASIAir Plus
ZWO EAF (Electronic Automatic Focuser)
Twitter: / nickjlake
Insta: / nickjlake
Astrobin: www.astrobin.com/users/bortle9/
Video shot on Sony A7C
Rode Wireless Go microphone system - Věda a technologie
![Camera Rotation Assist in ASIAir Version 2.0 [New Feature!]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/UU17Kai_lK0/mqdefault.jpg)
![Camera Rotation Assist in ASIAir Version 2.0 [New Feature!]](/img/tr.png)
Thanks for watching, everyone! Here are links to the Mosaic Planning and Processing videos:
Mosaic Planning: czcams.com/video/DbpvP0156fY/video.html
Mosaic Processing (Pixinsight): czcams.com/video/O1L3afpv0xU/video.html
Thank you Nick. Your tutorials are always most helpful and always timely. Do keep us abreast of ASIAIR’s many features.
Thanks, Joseph!
As always Nick, you are among the top of all professional videos available for astrophotography. Thanks for everything you do!
Thank you, Ken! Glad to be able to dive in on these features 😎
Another great video Nick! Very helpful fast track for me as I've yet to test drive the new feature. I like labeling scheme in plan mode vs Telescopius.
Nick, I am in the process of actually doing this: a 2x2 mosaic as my starter - there's nothing like diving in to learn to swim! Thanks again for your inspiring video.
In this exercise I got to thinking about this tool and have raised my ideas with ZWO who have responded that they will consider them. It's this: if you are photographing a southern target, the order of the panes that the tool provides is northern row, left to right, then southern row, left to right. This means that the western panes are done after the eastern ones in each row. It also means that the last frame(s) are shot late in the a.p. session and thus are in danger of encountering a terrestrial obstruction (like your horizon), while the eastern ones still have an hour or two of clear sky. I would like to see a facility that would allow me to alter the order of the frames, at least to do the western ones first. In fact, in a 2x2 matrix, I would choose SW, NW, then SE and NE as my order. Additionally, if one had some problems with clouds affecting a pane or two one night, then I would like to be able to redo the sequence but with those affected panes first when I can be reasonably sure I would be cloud-free. Obviously, the pane numbering sequence would remain the same so that you know which is which at a glance.
Well, that's my musings for what they are worth. I'd like to hear others' thoughts.
Oops, Nick and others! I have, belatedly and with a red face, discovered that in the Plan screen there are pane repositioning tools. This would get around my issues with western panes striking the horizon first. I tried that last night and it seemed to work well. My apologies for rabbiting on about an issue that ZWO has already covered. I just didn't look closely enough at what was available in Plan - I was too focused on the Mosaic tool.
BTW: I also discovered that the Mosaic generation tool assigns the panes in a different order when you are in the eastern as compared to the western hemispheres! That one surprised me.
You made it so simple Nick, thank you
The ASI Air is really evolving! With this mosaic feature getting better, might start attracting NINA users 🙂 Thanks for the video!
Could be! Gotta dig into NINA one of these days!
Thank you Nick! I’ve got to try this.
Definitely do! It's a breeze 😎
I am learning with you! I will use it. Thank you!
Thanks a lot!!!
Regarding overlap, I came from Landscape photography before I dived into the rabbit hole of Astro. When doing a landscape panorama, the minimum overlap between images is 25%.
Interesting, makes sense! I'm really surprised it defaults to 10 on the ASIAir!
I suggest a video on how to assemble the mosaic in pixinsight. Thanks
Ask and you shall receive! czcams.com/video/O1L3afpv0xU/video.html 😎
You skipped the part where you can set the details for one pane and then copy it over to the other panes. There is a little plus icon at the top right in the details screen. It will give you the option to copy it to all other targets or only the subsequent ones.
Thanks Martin! Yes, a good feature, though that was present before 2.0, no? I'll definitely cover it in a Plan Mode walkthrough 😎
@@WindyCityAstrophotography I was planning to make videos on ASIAIR v2.0 too, but my backlog of things to film is too large. Currently busy on a video review of an AM5 mount.
Yes, I was struggling to find out how to copy the pane to the others. Thanks Martin!
Thanks Martin!! This is exactly what I was searching for.
thank you - great video.
Thanks Mike!
@@WindyCityAstrophotography Nick, I attempted my 1st Mosaic with v2.0 last night - had to abort due to clouds rolling in. Plan to pick up where I left off tonight. When I boot up the AIR, will the Plan Mode know where I left off ?
thank you in advance
@@mikelockwood2104 yes it should! When I have done that in the past it picks up right where it was. Just don't reset progress or anything. Good luck!
@@WindyCityAstrophotography thank you for the prompt reply ! Well I will hopefully find out tonight
Nice video, can’t wait to see more features of v2.0.
How about rotation for the next one.
Do you know if ZWO will finally produce and sell a field rotator, instead of rotating our cameras manually?
Thanks, Christian! Yes, hoping to do rotation next or soon! I have heard rumblings about a rotator from ZWO, but nothing certain. It would be amazing, and would work especially well now that the rotation assistance is baked in.
ZWO just keeps on improving that little red box... I have zero need for one, but I keep looking at them thinking I might pick one up... you know... because why not? LOL
Thanks for such a great video! how did you figure this out? awesome! does ZWO put any kind of documentation when they come out with new features as this one?
Anyway, looking forward to using this mosaic on the seagull neb. soon. Clear Skies!
Thanks and you are welcome! The documentation from ZWO is usually pretty light on details, but more or less intuitive in the actual interface. I like putting these videos together so those who don't have the time to mess around trying stuff can still take full advantage of all the features.
This saved my bacon, thanks! Question, once you create a mosaic plan, how do you save it? I inadvertently wiped it out and it was a pin to recreate since I had manually centered the mosaic on my target (I was able to use previous nights shots to reposition it and save as a sequence within a plan, but it only worked because I shot the same mosaic the night before)
Thanks for a very helpful video. I am interested in an Any Sky PA test. Before V2, it worked perfectly for me. Now it the RA and DEC drifts during PA. Without touching the mount bolts, the position of the scope drifts continuously making PA impossible. I have been in touch with the developers with not satisfactory results. I understand that this feature is still in experimental mode, but it worked beautifully before V2. I love this feature-I am in the Southern Hemisphere with no view of the south celestial pole at all due to trees. HEQ5 pro, ZWO 294MC pro, ZWO guiding. Best regards, Gordon
Thanks Gordon! I haven't tried all-sky PA since 2.0 but I DID have an issue back in August with similar to what you are experiencing. Turns out the mount tracking wasn't turning back on after the mount did its calibration rotation in all-sky PA. After I manually toggled the tracking back on the drift issue went away. Possible that issue is cropping up with different mounts in different versions; I will have to retry it!
I have the same problem. Quite unreliable.
@jpastroguy Have you tried toggling the tracking back on? When I had the issue that fixed it. Annoying to have to do it, but I was able to get aligned
Yes, I tried that after you advised that you had had a similar problem. Unfortunately, the problem persisted for me. I guess I will have to wait until the next version update to see if the developers have done something to fix the issue. Thanks so much. Best, Gordon.
Thanks to you Nick I got out last night and imaged my first mosaic (well, sort of 😢). Clouds killed my 3rd and 4th pane of a 2x2 mosaic. If you can answer a few questions I’d be most grateful. 1.) since most, but not all frames were clouded over in two of the quadrants, the next time I image should I compensate for the bad quadrants by adding extra subs in those quadrants? 2.) when I do get out tonight, will ASAAIR Sky Atlas frame image exactly the same (nothing in my image train has changed). Any suggestions for adding multi-night additions to my subs? Can’t tell you how much I appreciate your channel and your responsiveness.
Hey, that's great to hear Joseph! Too bad about the clouds, but yes you can (and should) easily make up for those lost frames. ASIAir will find the exact spot, and you can reorder the panes in the Plan Mode so it isn't redoing panes you already have enough data for (unless you want to). Definitely keep notes about what you shot and when so you can easily compile the data later when you are stacking. I've done mosaic shots over several nights with different filters each night and as long as you keep it all straight and get everything registered to the right frames you should be golden! If nothing has changed in your imaging train you should be able to reuse your flats, which will simplify the process as well!
Hey Nick. Thanks for your videos they are extremely helpful. However, I am having an issue. I make a plan, have my panels all set up and add it to my plan. However If I am trying to shoot a mosiac over a few weeks, when I go into my plan, all my panels have shifted around?
help request;
my first attempt at a mosiac stalled last night.
your video helped me advance forward.. thank you !
i ran into a wall after the plan completed.
i assumed i would find a final mosiac image when the plan completed. i did not.
what happens with the images when the plan completes ?
question on guiding. When planning for multiple planes, does ASIair take into account guiding on different stars?
I tried out the Mosaic feature on ASIAir with 4 frames and 12 x 300 second images of each frame. I lost about 6 images from the 1srt frame due to clouds but the rest look great. My next step is to stack the mosaic images. Do I need to stack each of the 4 frames individually and align them manually in Photoshop?
I tried to see if ASIStudio Stacking feature has ability to align all 4 frames. It came up with errors when I tried to stack all of them together. So I am guessing that I need to stack each frame of images individually. I also had a meridian flip occur in the middle of one of the frames, but I think ASIStudio Stacking will recognize the different orientation and still stack them correctly.
In plan mode there doesn’t seem to be any way to rotate the mosaic for better framing, before adding to the current plan - am I missing something? I noticed, if you switch to preview, that option is available, but then there is no way to add the rotated mosaic to a plan.
I don't have the ability to rotate the mosaic in plan mode. I have it in preview, but that doesn't carry over to plan.
I am missing something in your video. How do you get the plan from preview to plan mode?? More important than that, I can rotate a frame in preview mode and cannot find anyway to transfer the rotated mosaic from the preview to the plan. I would sure appreciate an answer to this if it is possible.
How does rotate work with this?
I tried this last night for the E/W Veil nebula. Got everything setup for a simple 1x2 on my ASI 533MCPro. But when I hit the start button in plan mode, the button appeared to change to pause button, but it never started shooting. Wondered what I’m missing. There was no delayed start in the plan but after waiting about 10-12 mins, it still said 0/45 pics taken in the sequence. Any thoughts anyone?
Why does my mosaic mode in plan mode not have a rotation feature ?
curious - I am putting a HUGE project in - if I bring it over from Telescopus when I import the text file over - when I put the length and number of exposures in - it applies this across the entire plan.
When I do this in ASIAIR Plus - I have to alter these for each frame - this is really time consuming if you are making a huge exposure covering a vast swath of space - the setup will take some real time. And you can not make these edits when the system is capturing.
Am I missing something here? Is there a way having the ASIAIR set up the Mosaic's exposure length and number of exposures?
Yes you definitely can, though it isn't the most intuitive UI. When you are in the Details of a pane there is a plus (+) icon at the top right that allows you to copy those settings to all panes.
Any advice for photographing a galaxy to prevent blowing out the central core. Let's say a 2x1 mosaic, where the central core will be photographed twice while the outer areas will be each photographed less, wouldn't the core be way brighter than the outer fringes of the galaxy? Thanks for making great videos on the Asi Air.
Ah, interesting! So the mosaic combination isn't additive by default. So as long as you have equally integrated panes, it shouldn't matter that certain parts have been imaged twice. Only one set of data will appear in the mosaic. But for a galaxy core you'll have to be careful to have it not blown out in any of the data.
I just pick a frame and use Pixinsight linear fit for the other frames, to get them all looking even, before getting into more processing but after DBE.
I am interested in doing some mosaics of the moon. But that used video and stacking. Is this kind of mosaic capability part of ASIAIR?
That is a great question, it doesn't support lunar mosaics, though that kind of functionality would be cool. The problem might be the plate-solving.
Nick, you have the gift of making a puzzling issue clear, to the point of wanting to try out your way. I look forward to seeing more of your videos.
You asked for suggestions: What is the point of Live Stacking in ASiair 2.0? I can see it might be useful in situations where a nebula is faint, and it might show that you are on the right track with your exposures and framing. However, is it more than that? Also, I haven't seen a good comparison of Live Stacking vs standard integration: most videos seem to have Live Stacking examples only a fraction of the total exposure of the standard integration example. Also #2, in Live Stacking do you get the individual frames stored as well as the stacked image? And finally, does Live Stacking require Dark & Flat masters to give a decent result? Unfortunately, I can't check these issues out just yet as my ASiair is undergoing a warranty claim - 6 weeks turnaround, I'm told. {Groan!}
Nick, guess I was lucky last night with managing to get the mosaic to work. Tonight, for the life of me, I couldn’t get it to work. I was able to get my four panel mosaic into plan, but I kept getting a “no target selected” notice. Do you need to set up the plan before going into SkyAtlas? Would it be possible for you to give specific instructions about getting the panes into plan, then what? Do you detail each panel? What about the plan panel? Any suggestions as to how to proceed would be most appreciated. I just wasted a beautiful clear night trying to find the right sequence. Hope I’m not asking too much.
Just a follow up….tried again tonight, the four panes were all designated and checked in the plan mode, however only the first of the four panes gets imaged. It won’t move on to the second , third, forth pane. Just seems stuck. Please do a video on this!!!
Yikes, sorry to hear about the issues, Joseph! Plan mode video upcoming, but for now you should be able to copy the details to the other targets/panes using the plus sign at the top right in the details screen. Hopefully that helps! The other panes have to be populated with details; the ASIAir won't by default assume they are identical to the first.
@@WindyCityAstrophotography Can’t wait for that video. Yes I used the “+” to populate the details in the panes. I’m missing something although I’ve tried every trial-and-error option I could think of even re-loading the firmware.. The ASIAIR just gets stuck on pane one and won’t move to the other panes. Anyway, I can’t tell you how grateful I am to have your support and responsiveness. God speed with that video :-)
I'm waiting for my asiair mini and wondering if you can plan your mosaics ahead of time or if you can only set up what you're shooting at that time.
Yes indeed! I wanted to double-check that to be sure. I'm sitting inside right now on a cloudy night planning my next one. One caveat: you need your camera attached and powered on in order to do it. Without a camera (and scope focal length entered) it won't unlock a lot of the functions, including mosaic planning.