Astrodon OIII 3nm under Moonlight

[Gib007]

What are people's opinions on using an Astrodon OIII 3nm filter on nights with the Moon? I know HA is great but what about OIII, considering the 3nm bandwidth? I'm sure someone here has given it a go. Thanks!

[DaveS]

Is this for visual? I only see imaging kit in your sig.

[nmoushon]

My understanding of narrowband filters is that they all work very similarly under the same conditions. Now I do know that if you get too close to the moon you will have to deal with potential gradients. 

[Gib007]

Purely for astrophotography. I never look through a telescope, just at a laptop screen!

I assume staying away from the immediate vicinity of the Moon is always a good idea, but I wonder whether or not an Astrodon 3nm narrowband filter, even Oxygen-III, is capable of getting fantastic contrast even when the Moon is up (shooting frames on another part of the night sky, of course). I just bought my new filters and await their arrival, so haven't had the chance to test it out yet. Would be nice to hear verdicts from people who use them. 

[RikM]

I have moved this thread into Imaging discussion.

I am not sure how 'moon proof' OIII is but I think it will still be effected to some degree if you are imaging too close to the moon.

[DaveS]

I was getting O[iII] subs of M27 last night under totally horrible conditions with just a bog-standard Baader filter. OK, they may not be brilliant, but I was getting *something*. I reccon an Astrodon 3 nm filter would be even better.

The 3 nm Astrodons give you the possibility of splitting Ha and NII, but at a price!

[Earl]

They are very good but not perfect, just a case of try it and see how it works out for you.

Last night I found Luminance even at 90 degress away from the moon to be quite washed out (600s) however R and G were not to bad, when i moved to Ha on the Californian (900s) it was fne.

[ChrisLX200]

I used an Astrodon 3nM OIII last night under a very bright moon, it does not fully protect by any means but the data is at least usable after some minimal background reduction in pp. Where the 3nM filter scores against the Baader is that there is no star bloat, something very obvious with the Baader filter. So far I have just the OIII and SII in 3nM so I'm still having to use the 7nM Baader Ha. Whereas before the stars appeared fattest through the Baader OIII filter now they are fattest through the Baader Ha, so I really need the full set to get a ballanced result. Compositing a NB image with stars of different sizes leads to inevitable complications with coloured halos, and where before (using a Baader set) they were blue halos now they are orange!  I have to resort to reducing star sizes in the Ha stack during pp to avoid this until I can afford to replace it.

ChrisH

[pyrasanth]

Sadly the moon is a full spectrum object as it is just reflecting sunlight. It would be unreasonable to expect filters to completely remove its effects.

[Gina]

I have taken OIII with a full moon but needed to go for a DSO at least 45 degrees from the moon.  I find I need Gradient Xterminator in Photoshop to remove the inevitable gradient but have had some reasonable results with an Astrodon 3nm OIII filter.  For Ha and SII I us Astrodon 5nm filters.