Can I stitch star-trail images from two cameras into one panorama?
Asked 9/3/2012
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I shot the same star-trail session with two cameras at once: a Canon 7D aimed upward with some trees in frame, and a Canon Rebel XTi aimed more straight up. Both ran with the same exposure settings and timing, at roughly similar focal lengths (17mm and 18mm).
Panorama tools like AutoStitch and Photoshop Photomerge are not matching the frames, likely because most of the image is dark sky with star trails.
What is the best workflow here? Should I first stack each camera’s sequence into a single star-trail image and then try to stitch those two results into a panorama? If so, can this be done automatically, and what is needed for it to work well?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
13y ago
2 Answers
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Your problem consists of two parts.
Star trail stitching
First you want to combine the photos of each camera separately into star trail images. Your result will be a star trail image from the 7D and one image from the XTi.
This answer has more details on astrophotography. The relevant part is under the heading Capturing Star Trails.
For the stacking you need software like DeepSkyStacker, IRIS or StarStaX
Combining two images
Once you have got your two star trail images (one from the 7D and one from the XTi) you can combine them in a panorama with Photoshops Photomerge. For the panorama tool to work a slight overlap of the images is necessary.
Originally by user9161. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user9161
13y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes—first create one finished star-trail image from each camera’s sequence, then stitch those two final images into a panorama.
For the star trails, stack each camera’s frames separately using star-trail/astro stacking software such as DeepSkyStacker, IRIS, or StarStaX. That gives you one trail image from the 7D and one from the XTi.
After that, use panorama software such as Photoshop Photomerge to combine the two finished images. For this to work, the images need some overlap; without overlapping content, automatic panorama tools usually cannot align them.
So the practical workflow is:
- Stack each camera’s burst into a single star-trail image.
- Make sure the two camera views overlap enough.
- Stitch those two resulting images into a panorama.
If there is little or no overlap, automatic stitching is unlikely to succeed.
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