Isn't it incredible what we can capture with amateur gear from a backyard? And even when the conditions are below average modern software can help us pull out a beautiful image.
For me, all this is nothing short of a miracle. When I watch the live video feed during the recording and then look at the final result, how can this even be possible?
My thanks go to all the developers and genius minds that provide us with all these powerful tools. Without them, I could never do astrophotography. And we would not be able to see so many beautiful images here on Astrobin.
I used a Radian Raptor 61 at its native focal length of 335mm, with a Daystar QUARK Chromosphere H-alpha filter and a ZWO ASI432MM camera.
During the recording of this image, the sun was approximately 25 degrees above the horizon. Seeing was 1.5" according to MeteoBlue, but that's just theory. And a very thin layer of high clouds passed over the sky. The sun wobbled quite severely with occasional calmer phases.
I assembled this mosaic from five panels. For each, I stacked 25% of the best frames from a 7000-frame video in Autostakkert. The video resolution of 1608*1104 pixels, and the average recording speed was around 90fps.
For image curves manipulation and sharpening, I used IMPPG. And for the assembly of the five panels into a mosaic, I used Microsoft ICE. This software works magic; it's unbelievable how it automatically aligns, combines, and blends all panels.
I then colourized the image in Photoshop and did other finetuning. For a very gentle denoising pass, I used Topaz Denoise AI. And I exported the final version from Adobe Lightroom.
Captured and edited March 12th 2023 in the south of Sweden.
Enjoy
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