On reflection, this is terrible...

[PhotoGav]

Following my recent image post of the Horsehead nebula, I want to try and suss out where the internal reflection problem is coming from... I have an Altair Wave Series 102mm F7 Super ED Triplet APO with an Altair PlanoStar 3" 0.79x 3-Element Reducer. Here are three single subs with the reflections circled in white. The question is: what is causing the reflections - the telescope, the reducer or the filters? I look forward to hearing your experienced opinions and potential solutions!

RED

 

GREEN

 

BLUE

[MARS1960]

I'm just a newbie but as the reflections aren't the same in all the channels (more in blue channel) would it suggest the filters?

[PhotoGav]

16 minutes ago, MARS1960 said:

I'm just a newbie but as the reflections aren't the same in all the channels (more in blue channel) would it suggest the filters?

I like your reasoning and am prepared to go along with that until somebody proves otherwise!

[Thalestris24]

Hmm... hard to tell. Some of them look somewhat like caustics. I think you'll have to do some investigating with single subs and moving/rotating things to see what happens. I'm sure you must have a dew/light shield to help keep any extraneous light sources at bay. I've had problems with reflections caused by an Halpha filter. However, they disappeared with dithering and kappa-sigma stacking.

Hope you can sort the problem

Louise

[Owmuchonomy]

No idea Gav but I had the same scope.  Fortunately I was able to return it for a full refund due to other seemingly unsurmountable issues.  I hope in your case it is a simple remedy.  I was told though that the 0.79 reducer was not compatible with it.

[PhotoGav]

Thank you Chris & Louise. I have contacted Altair, so I will see what they have to say about it.