Quick question on moonlight

[broadsword]

On what is a beautiful clear night with a bright half moon, I was wondering what the effect of moonlight is on different types of imaging targets. I guess stars and clusters would be OK, but galaxies and diffuse nebulae would struggle? Does i work like light pollution, or can it be easily removed during processing.

thanks

[mrjolly]

From my very limited experience, I tried imaging Orion a few months ago when the moon was very close and although the raw frames were pretty blue (probably due to Light pollution as much as moon glow) by the time I'd finished tinkering they came out okay -to me anyway!

I expect fainter and distant objects will be affected more though.

Here's a comparison of a crop of 1 single 18s shot and the final product:

[Bizibilder]

You are right in thinking the Moon "washes out" DSO imaging. Planetary imaging is still easy to do. There is a trick however - narrowband imaging. A set of filters like these: http://www.firstlightoptics.com/narrowband/baader-narrowband-ccd-emission-line-h-alpha-filters-125.html can be used. Each is mapped to a colour channel and combined to make a "colour image".

[broadsword]

Roger, thanks for the advice on the filters, although with my configuration (C11/FR/camera t adapter) I haven't figured how to put filters in the optical train! Guess I'll stick to a couple of open clusters tonight. Nice pic of M42 Mr.Jolly...