Mosaic Planner Pro

Mosaic Planner Pro mosaic grid around a nebula
Mosaic Planner Pro - designing a 3x3 mosaic with overlap and rotation.

Mosaic Planner Pro is the dedicated multi-panel layout tool inside Astro Imaging Toolbox. It takes your imaging setup and target and lets you design 2x1, 2x2, 3x3 or more complex mosaics visually, with control over overlap, rotation and panel coordinates.

Quick Start (5 min)

  1. Open Mosaic Planner Pro from the main dashboard or Tools menu.
  2. Select your camera + telescope profile or manually enter sensor size and focal length to compute the field of view.
  3. Set the target center using RA/Dec or by syncing with Sky Atlas.
  4. Choose the grid size (rows x columns) and desired overlap percentage.
  5. Adjust rotation and drag the panel grid until framing matches your desired composition.
  6. Export the layout: panel coordinates, notes or JSON that can be used as reference for sequencing/acquisition tools.

Controls

Control Default / Range What it does When to use
Camera / Telescope profile Current profile Sets the field of view based on sensor size and focal length. Keep in sync with your real setup; change when you swap scopes or reducers.
Target RA / Dec - Central sky coordinates for the mosaic. Use catalog coordinates or sync from Sky Atlas/Planner for accurate framing.
Rows x Columns 2x2 Number of mosaic panels in each direction. Increase rows for vertical span (e.g. dust lanes), columns for horizontal arcs.
Overlap (%) 10-15% How much adjacent tiles overlap on the sky. Use 10-15% for good pointing; increase to 20-25% if your mount/goto accuracy is modest.
Rotation (°) 0° Rotation of the mosaic grid relative to celestial north. Match to your planned camera angle; tweak until composition looks balanced.
Snap / constraints On Keeps the grid aligned with cardinal directions or target center. Disable only if you need very free-form adjustments.
Export layout - Exports panel centers, sizes and optional notes. Use after finalizing the geometry; keep the export with your project plans.

Example workflows

Classic 2x2 nebula mosaic

  1. Select your imaging setup and target (e.g. a large nebula that doesn’t fit in one frame).
  2. Set grid to 2x2 and overlap to 15%.
  3. Rotate until the grid follows the nebula’s long axis.
  4. Verify that important details are not sitting right on tile borders.
  5. Export panel centers and use them when building your acquisition plan.

Wide Milky Way field with asymmetric coverage

  1. Set a wide target center along the Milky Way band.
  2. Try a 3x2 grid and rotate to follow the galactic plane.
  3. Use higher overlap (20-25%) if pointing is not perfect or if you want comfortable blending margins.

Tips & notes

  • Overlay your designed mosaic on Sky Atlas to double-check that nothing important is cut off.
  • Remember that real-world pointing errors and field rotation during the night eat into your overlap budget.
  • For narrowband mosaics under light pollution, a little extra overlap makes gradient management much easier.

Troubleshooting

  • Panels don’t seem to match what I see in my images → verify focal length, reducer factor and sensor size in your profile.
  • Stars fall near seams when blending → slightly increase overlap or adjust rotation so key structures sit well inside panels.
  • Export looks confusing → rename panels descriptively (e.g. N1, N2, S1, S2) and keep the export with your project notes.

Updated 2025-11-15