mightymonoped

I personally would say yes, absolutely. Especially if you are imaging wide-field with a OSC camera, it opens up a world of narrowband possibility with little extra effort or outlay. Although the l-eNhance is not as selective as the L-extreme filter, it's a great introduction to NB imaging and offers many more imaging opportunities to OSC imagers who are in light-polluted or more urban environments.

Thought I'd have a go at this last night as there was unexpected (to me) clear skies and the rig was already setup on the balcony. I've tried pretty much every other target available to me and have run out of viable options from my limited viewpoint but M45 is actually accessible to my setup for at least 3 or 4 hours currently. I swapped out the l-eNhance filter for an l-Pro light pollution filter to hopefully deal with the car-park lights and sky-glow and kicked off a slurry of 60 x 120s shots. Conditions (judging by FWHM and guiding) weren't brilliant but I had a go anyway. Pre-Processed in APP for stacking, integration and light pollution cleanup. Processed in Photoshop for everything else. Forgive the diffraction spikes, I know it's a thorny one but I actually quite like them on this target sometimes. Still need to do another couple of hours capture on this anyway so I'll do a spike-free version when it's complete. WO Redcat 51 with Optolong l-Pro filter ASI 294mc pro -10C unity gain Star Adventurer tracker

2.5hrs worth of lights under a rising Moon from my balcony. WO Redcat 51 and Optolong l-eNhance filter ASI294mc pro at -10C unity gain Skywatcher Star Adventurer Processed in Astro Pixel Processor, starnet++ and Photoshop

Thought I'd have a go at reprocessing this capture from June in HOO using some new techniques. Extracted a Star Layer using Starry and Starless versions of the stretched and initially processed capture. Extracted Starless Red (Ha) and Green (OIII) channels. Recombined in new image using HSL colourise (Orange/Red to Ha and Green to OIII), then used Layer Mask for Ha layer to reveal the OIII layer beneath, Levels and curves to finish. Camera Raw Filter to address Contrast, Texture, Noise, Colour, Clarity and Detail. Final finishing off with High-Pass filter before remerging with reduced Star Layer. Weak HLVG filter then finish off with AstroFlat Pro for final touches. WO Redcat 51 ASI294mc pro -10C unity gain Optolong l-eNhance filter Star Adventurer tracker Clear skies all, Tony

Had another play with NGC1499 HOO extract - this time assigning more emphasis on the OIII. Paid close attention to the black point but balanced that with dark noise reduction to clean things up a bit. I quite like this, it may not be scientific but I think it's purty! 🙂 WO Redcat 51 ASI294mc pro Optolong l-eNhance Star Adventurer Integrated in APP Processed with starnet++ and Photoshop CC using HSL Split Complimentary colours and layer mask recombination technique.

Thought I'd have a swipe at using AstroEd's nifty little Narrowband Recombination technique using Ha and OIII channels extracts from an l-eNhance filter capture of NGC1499 the California Nebula. The proper technique can be found on AstroEd's Youtube Channel this is just my ham-fisted first attempt using what I had to hand. Will definitely be exploring this one for the future though as it's such an elegant solution. In this case, I have just created a Star Layer out of an already combined version and kept it to one side while I recombined starless Ha and OIII images and processed them before remerging the Star Layer. Be gentle with me but I kind of like the colours 🙂 Tony

Added another two hours worth of 120 & 180s subs to the existing RGB data to bring us up to 4 hours. I think this has added some more detail all round and certainly seemed less noisy when processing. Happier with the colour mix in this one, the last one I did had a distinct green tinge to it looking at it now. WO Redcat, ASI294mc pro -10C unity gain, Optolong l-pro filter, Skywatcher star Adventurer tracker

Lovely detail in the Heart

Thought it would be worth having a swipe at this given the moonless night and the opportunity for a clear run for 3 hours or so from my balcony. 3.5 hours worth of 120s and 180s subs plus calibration. The Star Adventurer performed outstandingly, only lost 3 frames over the entire session. WO Redcat 51 Optolong l-Pro filter ASI294mc pro at -10C unity gain Processed in Astro Pixel Processor, starnet++ and Photoshop CC

Reprocessed as LRGB, I think I prefer the detail and colour balance in this version.

As I seem to be playing with colours this week, I thought it might be fun to have a play with merging two individual captures, one in HOO, the other in RGB. Both were captured with the WO Redcat and ASI294mc pro, one with an Optolong l-eNhance NB filter, the other with an Optolong l-Pro filter in RGB. I loaded both unprocessed Fits files into Astro Pixel Processor and did a little bit of cleanup work for light pollution on both before analysing the stars and registering them against each other. I then saved the registered images as .tif files and merged them in Photoshop at 50% transparency. I cropped the merged image and saved as a separate image before splitting it into starry and starless versions using starnet++ Subtracted the starry from the starless using Apply Image and cut and pasted the star layer into the starless image using linear dodge. I then went to town on the starless version, healing artefacts before playing with the details and colour mix using Camera Raw Filter. Then did a general cleanup using Noel's Action for noise reduction and local contrast enhancement. Reduced the star layer using Curves before merging the layer back into the overall image. Hasn't actually made a huge difference but has pulled out some of the fainter stuff and it's fun to play with colours 🙂

Reprocessed this 3 hour HOO capture as a false SHO. No real SII to speak of so I just duplicated the OIII extract. Merged RGB in Photoshop, stripped stars in starnet++ and processed starless image in PS using Camera Raw Filter and Selective Colour to bring out the colours (other than green 🙂). Merged with a reduced star layer and did a general cleanup. Quite like the portrait framing as it brings out the 'flame' aspects I think? WO Redcat Optolong l-eNhance filter ASI294mc pro -10 unity gain Star Adventurer tracker

Can't believe I've had two clear nights on the run! 3 hours worth of 120s subs under pretty oppressive light pollution from the Moon using Optolong l-eNhance filter. WO Redcat 51 ASI294mc pro at -10C unity gain (120) ASIair pro for capture and guiding Integrated in Ha-OIII Colour in AstroPixelProcessor Starless image via starnet++ Processed in Photoshop CC

Haha, that may be a byproduct of processing the arms and lanes separately from the stars. I thought I’d treat it like s nebula and see how it worked. Tried to not push detail and saturation too much and try to keep a sense of 3d (if that makes sense?).

First attempt at playing with capturing with different filters in the same session. This was grabbed last night under fairly horrendous light conditions because of the rising Moon. An hour's worth of HOO and nearly two hour's worth of RGB using Optolong l-eNhance and L-Pro filters in the ZWO magnetic filter drawer. WO Redcat and ASI294mc pro on Star Adventurer Tracker. Stacked, Integrated and combined RGB and HOO using Astro Pixel Processor Separated star layer in starnet++ and processed in Photoshop CC Reduced stars and cropped for framing.

Thank you! 😊

2 Hours worth but under a Full Moon. Will definitely have a go at this under better conditions. WO Redcat 51 on Star Adventurer using Optolong l-eNhance filter on ASI294mc pro camera. 57 x 120s subs at -10C at unity gain plus calibration Stacked in Astro Pixel Processor and processed using Starnet++ and Photoshop CC Cropped for posting.

Connected fine and functioned as normal.

Don’t know what’s happened to the image, wasn’t deleted by me.

I'll find out this afternoon 🙂

I put the dslr in Bulb mode at f4, depressed the shutter and removed the lens while it was still exposing. When I checked the lens aperture it had retained the f-stop, so that was a result! 😊

This was intended as a quick test to see if I could capture anything (at all really) using a good old Canon 50mm 1.8 with an ASI294mc pro, rather than the usual DSLR. Firstly, I 'locked' the nifty at a usable f4 using my DSLR before releasing it and connecting it to the ASI294. This was connected via the ZWO filter draw, which already contained an Optolong l-eNhance filter. This in turn prompted me to look for a target with some meaningful Ha content. Rather than go with the usual NA and pelican nebs, I decided to point the setup somewhere in the region of the Perseus Double Cluster, in an attempt to capture the Heart & Soul into the bargain. After what seemed like a lifetime trying to manually focus to something half-way decent, I began capturing 60s unguided subs. Unfortunately, the balcony pillar obstructed the right side of nearly all of the frames so the resultant image has been cropped to remove the annoying blurred obstruction. This crop is 110 x 60s plus darks processed as HOO in APP. Processed in Astro Pixel Processor and Photoshop CC

Thanks all! 😊

This was a short capture done while waiting for the Soul Nebula to become accessible. Around 30 x 60s and 20 x 120s subs using Redcat, l-eNhance tri-band filter and ASI294mc pro on Star adventurer. I wanted to have something to play around with using something like the SHO pallet, so I processed separate channels in Astro Pixel Processor:- A false channel (Ha-0III Mono) acting as SII for Red Ha for Green Oxygen III for Blue Merged the Channels in Photoshop then adjusted slighly using Channel Mixer adjustment layer before stripping out the stars and processing the starless image. Processing was mainly iterative Selective Colour adjustments and Camera Raw Filter Processed the separate Star Layer before merging and final cleanup.

70 x 120s subs This was an awkward one as I have to wait for it to clear the balcony supports, it's just in the wrong part of the sky for me at the moment. No flats for this one as I still have to do some for use withe the l-eNhance filter. Planning on processing this properly over the weekend. WO Redcat 51 with Optolong L-eNhance filter and ASI294mc pro camera on Star Adventurer Processed in Astro Pixel Processor, Starnet++ and Photoshop CC