Light Pollution Filter Capabilities

[Arran townsend]

Hi all, I am thinking of getting a light pollution filter, the Skytech CLS canon clip filter to be exact, and I have done some research into the capability's of this filter without finding much information about what can I photograph with this filter, and what can I not photograph?

I like the idea of being able to photograph most deep sky objects, galaxies, nebulae, clusters and so on...

 

Thanks, Arran.

Edited June 6, 2019 by Arran townsend

[PeterCPC]

A CLS filter will help to reduce light pollution from Sodium (Orange) lighting. It won't really help much if you have the more modern LED (White) lights. For those an IDAS D2 filter will help.

Peter

[Arran townsend]

4 hours ago, PeterCPC said:

A CLS filter will help to reduce light pollution from Sodium (Orange) lighting. It won't really help much if you have the more modern LED (White) lights. For those an IDAS D2 filter will help.

Peter

Is there anyway I can find out what kind of lighting is in my area, maybe like an online map I cant find? 

Here is a test exposure of my skies, to me it looks like it's mostly sodium light causing the pollution, but I'm aware that LED lighting is on its way in 

[PeterCPC]

That certainly looks like Sodium to me. You can usually tell just by looking with the naked eye - does it have an orange glow. If LED lights are coming soon then I would not bother with a CLS.

Peter

[Arran townsend]

3 minutes ago, PeterCPC said:

That certainly looks like Sodium to me. You can usually tell just by looking with the naked eye - does it have an orange glow. If LED lights are coming soon then I would not bother with a CLS.

Peter

I know the council have installed led lights on some of the main roads around my area, but not on the streets.

[Cosmic Geoff]

If you can get hold of a diffraction grating (or prism), you can have some fun holding it up to various light sources and instantly seeing a coarse spectrum. If you do this with LED streetlights you will see why trying to filter them out is doomed to be a complete waste of time.  

[Arran townsend]

On 07/06/2019 at 06:57, PeterCPC said:

A CLS filter will help to reduce light pollution from Sodium (Orange) lighting. It won't really help much if you have the more modern LED (White) lights. For those an IDAS D2 filter will help.

Peter

Hi peter, I'm wondering if a light pollution filter will still allow me to photograph celestrial objects like clusters and galaxies, I've heard that they are great for nebulae, but I can't find anything about galaxies and clusters. Could you help me out?

[Cosmic Geoff]

2 hours ago, Arran townsend said:

Hi peter, I'm wondering if a light pollution filter will still allow me to photograph celestrial objects like clusters and galaxies, I've heard that they are great for nebulae, but I can't find anything about galaxies and clusters. Could you help me out?

You will want to image clusters and galaxies in white light, which means you can try filtering out light pollution from narrow-band sources like sodium lighting using a band-stop filter, but not continuous spectrum light pollution from white LED lights.

Nebulae emit much of their light in narrow bands, so band-pass filters will help in viewing or imaging them against a background of continuous spectrum light pollution.

The short answer to your question is probably "No".

[cotak]

Led lights are worrying but I have also noticed they tend to be better designed not to splash so much light around.

[GeorgeLiv]

The notion that the new LED pollution is bad for astronomers isn't true. If you actually obtain your own sky-glow spectrum today, you'll know exactly what to buy filter wise. yourlightpollution.com