Finally nailed a full moon mosaic on the third try, here's what went wrong the first two times

I've been chasing a decent full moon mosaic for about 3 weeks now. First attempt at a local park near Tacoma, my tripod slipped on frozen grass and I got 30 blurry frames. Second try, I used my phone to time the shots but the moon moved too fast between panels. Last night I switched to a cheap intervalometer and shot 14 overlapping frames in about 11 minutes, then stitched them in the free software. The edges still have one seam I can see, but the craters along the terminator finally look sharp. Anyone else find that full moons are way harder to stitch than crescent phases? I'm wondering if I should just use more overlap next time or try a different software for alignment.

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the_eva15d ago

That "moon moved too fast between panels" part is EXACTLY my pain point from last spring. I was timing things by hand too and got stretched, smeared edges that looked awful. Switching to a remote trigger was the game changer for me, it let me fire shots with barely any gap. For overlap, I went way overboard and did like 40% overlap instead of the usual 20, it made stitching SO much easier even if I had to shoot more frames. Also, I stopped fighting the alignment software and just used the free ICE tool, then touched up the seam with a clone brush in GIMP. That one visible seam you mentioned, I had it too, but a little feathering on the blend option fixed it completely.