North America in the sky

This week I learned how to do something new.

I have in mind an astrophotography target for next month—or maybe later in winter—that's far too big to fit in my telescope. The only way to capture it is by creating a mosaic: several separate images that are then stitched together. My software does this via something called a framing assistant, which I've looked at before but been immediately put off by its insane complexity.

But no. It turns out to be very cool and easy to use. So I headed out to my backyard and did a 2x2 mosaic of the North America nebula, which is also far too large for a single image. After a couple of false starts I got the mosaic below.

It's crappy, of course, and the fourth panel got ruined somehow. But it's a complete proof of concept. If it were better (and had all four panels and were rotated properly) it really would look sort of like North America, but don't blame yourself if you don't see it in this version. For reference, the streak in the lower left is Baja California looping up into Texas and the Gulf of Mexico.

One of these days I'll do a real version of this.