Did my first night of imaging last night. Would appreciate some advice!

[choochoo_baloo]

Dear all,

I had my first serious attempt at imaging last night. My equipment is:

Skywatcher 150P, Skywatcher Eq3-2 mount, RA motor drive, 2x and 3x Barlows, Nikon D90 DSLR

AS most will know, it was generally a very clear night last night. However we're effectively at a Full Moon, which I gather is unhelpful for imagers. So with this in mind, my queries are:

1.As with most amateurs, I am in fairly close proximity to street lights etc, and at certain times the orange haze both visual and in the images was obvious. Are the decent light pollution filters a gimmick, or are they very effective at doing as they advertise? Specifically, I am considering buying the Baader Neodymium Filter.

2. Related to Q 1, the .avi video I took of Mars and Saturn, both planets appeared too bright, and after initially familairising myself with the basics of Registax 6, I am convinced I need to record the images with a filter. I am aware that neutral density filters do just this, but this Baader Neodymium Filter also achieves this effect? So is some intensity filter a must for lunar and planetary, and if so would this Baader achieve this?

3. I found it hard, as confirmed by the images when on the computer, to focus properly. Obviously my viewing choices are either the camera's LCD screen or the viewfinder. The tiny size of the object in both was why I found it so hard to get a sharp focus. So is there a way of 'cropping' the frame during filming, so that I see/the camera records a larger image (via the settings) since the vast majority is black anyway? Or is the focuser that comes with the 150P too crude - should I buy one with finer control or is there a more technical way of focusing I am unaware of?

Otherwise I am hooked!

Thank you for any help in advance.

[oldpink]

yes LP filters do work and some work well, Inc the Baader ones
as to Mars & Saturn being too bright better to change the ISO or other settings on your camera rather than filters
you can see if you can get the Nikon version of BYEOS if your camera can do live view and record the images in X5 mode
rather than imaging direct to you camera

[Alien 13]

I have bad LP but never use a filter theres allways lots of data recorded and most if not all of the LP can be removed in processing..

I go against the standard view when focussing with my live view image i can see realy faint stuff so i focus on that it realy is like an on/off switch its either visible or not and works every time for me.

Alan

[Leveye]

Zoom the liveview to focus better. If you're taking movies to stack don't use over ISO 100 at first to see it that helps the overexposure. A light pollution filter such as the excellent Astronomix CLS filters will work with certain sodium lamps but not all sources of pollution.

[wxsatuser]

Decent LP filters work really well.

I have about a dozen of those orange streetlights in a small area here and there is not a whiff of LP using a Hutech filter.

Focusing......

I normally slew to the brightest star visible and get it dead centre in 10x Liveview and focus until sharp as possible, by eye.

I then put the Bahtinov mask on and tweak the pattern as best as possible, then take a short exposure to test the pattern.

Takes a few seconds to do and works well.

Bahtinov test pattern on bright star.

[Pete Presland]

good advice Mike your focus looks excellent!