Advice needed with Skywatcher Light Pollution Filter

[acharris77]

Hi all I need some advice. I bought a 2" LP filter from FLO about a month ago. It was the skywatcher one, but the box or filter don't say Skywatcher anywhere and it just came in a black box and protective case. I am using the filter attached on a 2" Nosepiece on my 1000D DSLR but to be honest the filter does not do anything. The orange glow is the same with or without and I think if anything the filter is actually reducing the detail getting to the DSLR camera.

Any help is appreciated as I know they don't remove all light pollution but I did expect to have some of the orange glow removed from images.  Thanks.

[beamer3.6m]

These filters are not miracle workers.

To show you what it does take it off the camera and hold it up to a street light with just your eye. You should see a difference.

If no difference at all then could be the type of light pollution you have or a dud.

[acharris77]

Thanks for the advice. Yeah I know certain type of street lights cant be filtered. When I used my 1.25 Baader Neodyium filter that made a difference on my Webcam, but this one seems to have a blue / grey tint but don't seem to do much lol. Thanks again.

[jambouk]

Is there anything written on the edge of the filter?

If ypu are not happy with it, see if FLO will do some deal to swap it for another one. They will know exactly what filter they supplied to you.

James

[laudropb]

Yes get back to FLO if you are not happy. I have the 1.25 version and it certainly helps dim my orange street light glow.

[acharris77]

Here are 2 shots I took with my phone camera, the bluer one is with the filter and the other is without. What do people think about it? could that where I am getting my blue bias from in the images?  Thanks in advance.

[beamer3.6m]

Seems to be cutting the lp to me.

In the 2nd image the ground is orange. In thw filtered version it is not.

[jambouk]

Yes, it's clearly reducing the LP, and its not uncommon that LP filters cause the image to take on a different hue, in this case blue.

You get what you pay for. Very narrow band Ha filters are many hundreds of pounds, IDAS and CLS ones (2") are a couple of hundred pounds, i suspect this filter was under a hundred pounds...

James

[Thalestris24]

Yeah, don't expect any filter to get rid of lp if you point directly at the source! Even a narrowband filter will let some direct streetlight through! I have to try and manage a nearby street light using a lp filter and a long light/dew shield on the scope. I still get unwanted gradients on my images

Louise

[geordie85]

I use the astronomik cls ccd clip in light pollution filter and it does an amazing job. Without it I could do about 30 second subs before my photos were washed out. With it I can do 5 minute subs or longer perfectly fine without any worry of my subs being washed out.

It does cost around £130 though but I'd say it's well worth it