Hi all

On the 4th March I captured the lovely pairing of IC4628 (emission nebula) and NGC6231 (open cluster). Almost a week later (10th March), I was looking for an object to image, and realised that I could also capture the lovely pairing of IC4628 and NGC6242 (open cluster). I tried to compose the 2nd shot so I could hopefully make a mosaic from the two images, and with a bit of massaging, it worked.

So there's 3 images here:
1. IC4628 + NGC6231: 4th March, 7x 240s exposures @ ISO800
2. IC4628 + NGC6242: 10th March, 15x 240s exposures @ ISO800
3. Mosaic of the whole area: NGC6242, IC4628 and NGC6231

I can see there's a lot of faint stuff around IC4628 that was barely captured - a modified camera and a lot more exposures would really do this area more justice.
The mosaic wasn't easy to fit together due to field rotation and field curvature in the corners due. You'll probably find the join but it's the best I could do with an unplanned mosaic

All taken with the unmodded Canon 350D + ED80 + WO 0.8x reducer/flattener. Guided on an EQ6 using DMK + PHD. Darks were ICNR and flats calibrated in ImagesPlus.

Please see the images below (be sure to click on the image to see the larger size)

* IC4628 + NGC6231
* IC4628 + NGC6242
* NGC6242, IC4628 and NGC6231

I'm quite happy with how they turned out. It's a lovely area of the sky.

Thanks for looking.

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Mike
. IceInSpace - The Australian Amateur Astronomy Community
. My Bio | My Jupiter 2007 Gallery | My Image Gallery

The mosaic worked out well, and affords a real widefield view. N6231 is an especially interesting cluster.

Robert

Beautiful. I can't begin to process images to the same level to try a mosaic.

You might try downloading the trial version of Registar. It is supposed to auto match mosaic images of differing scales. Kind of pricy and since I can't process them to the same level I haven't paid. I did try the demo (doesn't save) and it did a great job of matching to frames taken at different image scales due to being taken at different temperatures. One was a good 20 pixels larger than the other in scale and it merged them fine. My matching processing was lousy so never went any further. You have that issue solved so it may work for you.

Rick

A Gorgeous mosaic, and a beautiful nebula with its pair of clusters on its sides. Welldone.

Hi Mike,

Awesome images, I love the super wide FOV!

It's amazing what your able to do with an unmodified Canon!

Great Job!

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Best Regards,
John Chumack
The Chumack Observatories
MPC 838 Dayton Research Station
MPC H66 Yellow Springs Research Station
www.galacticimages.com

Wonderful set of shots and a great mosaic too.

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Observatorio de la Ballona

Thanks guys.

Rick I also tried registar once in the past and I know how powerful it is. I'm definitely tempted to give it another go, especially if I plan to capture more mosaics like this one.

__________________
Mike
. IceInSpace - The Australian Amateur Astronomy Community
. My Bio | My Jupiter 2007 Gallery | My Image Gallery

Once again marvelous work. Great mosaic.

Kind regards
Matt