Likwid

Awesome, that actually makes a lot of sense. I was a little underwhelmed at the amount of nebulosity in the Ha pic, so I figured I was a little underexposed. I just didn't realize it would have that effect on the images. Thank you both for your time!

Hello, I just bought an Ha Clip Filter and I am having some odd issues with it. Other than the standard focusing issues, I am getting images with an insane amount of noise. I have only tried this in my modified Rebel T3i, but I have an old modified Rebel XS I am going to test it with as well on the next clear night, in case this is a camera issue. I have tried this filter twice now and it seems like both times I attached this filter, everything goes to crap for the night. I am using an Orion ED80 on an Orion Sirius Mount, with an Orion ST80 and ZWO ASI120MM Mono Camera for guiding. My T3i is very finicky and will start go get unbearable noise around 35C+, so I try to keep it under 30C when I can. Both of these frames were taken in similar conditions (30C, 300s Exposures, 400ISO on Ha, 800ISO on RGB), a few days apart on the same rig. Is it just me or are they vastly different in terms of image quality? I had what appeared to be almost perfect guiding conditions in PHD according to the graph for the Ha frames, so I surprised to see little streaks instead of normal stars. I had a total of 30 minutes of integration with Ha and when I stacked them, it was painful to look at. Is there anything I can do to improve this? Thank you!

That's what I needed to know, thank you very much!

Hello, I thought that I had a lot of this figured out, but I just confused myself. 2 years ago, I removed the IR-Cut filter from my Canon DSLR and left the frame blank. To compensate for not having an internal filter, I bought an Astronomik CLS Canon EOS Clip Filter - CLS-EOS so I could get longer exposures in my light-polluted skies. I was reading an article from AstroBackyard a couple days ago about HaRGB images and decided to pull the plug and get Astronomik H-Alpha 12 nm EOS Clip Filter - HA12-EOS. This is where I start getting confused. I read originally that I needed an IR-Cut filter integrated into whatever light pollution filter I got, since I removed my internal filter. This is why I got the CLS filter instead of the CLS CCD after a lot of research. My H-Alpha filter just showed up today and the packaging says that it is actually a CCD filter, which from what I understand does not include an IR Cut Filter. There was no mention of this on the website, so I wanted to get a good answer before I broke the seal on this packaging. From what I read, if I don't have an IR Cut filter, stars will look bloated and my images will be off. Do I return this filter because my images will look off, or should I be ok to use it? Thank you in advance!

This is my Andromeda attempt last year just before it got too cold. Star Adventurer with Orion ST80 at prime focus. 30x60 second exposures at 400mm. Taken on a Rebel XS that I removed the IR Cut filter on and fitted a clip in CLS filter. I am glad that I started out with the Star Adventurer since it gave me the groundwork that I needed to upgrade to a solid mount. If I didn't go this route, moving straight to an Orion Sirus would have been overwhelming.