Imaging in light polluted skies

[Nova2000]

Hi everyone

I want to use the local clubs equipment tomorrow night and I'm planning to shoot some bright open clusters(m41.47) and a globular cluster(mostly m3).

I live in a bortle 6 area and the setup is 

Gso 10 f4, neq6, unmodded 700d, ASI Guide scope and 120mm camera for guiding . We can guide upto 5mins easily .

So I was wondering on how long do I expose the frames, iso etc

I have no hopes to point at a Galaxy cause I know I won't see anything because of light pollution (I may be wrong just a guess )

Are light pollution filters effective?

Thank you

Clear skies 

[alacant]

19 minutes ago, Nova2000 said:

tomorrow night

Hi

Don't forget the full moon too;) 

We sometimes image from a city centre location and find that the CLS filter works great and allows us longer exposures than unfiltered but remember that it is light pollution dependent and we've just discovered that there's not much you can do against the moon.

With a 10" I'd say maybe 2 minutes would be enough? The CLS may get you double that. Be prepared to experiment; you've a good while before m3 rises anyway, so practise on the open clusters. Go for as long as you can on the globular.

Do post your results.

Cheers and good luck.

[Nova2000]

6 minutes ago, alacant said:

Hi

Don't forget the full moon too;) 

We sometimes image from a city centre location and find that the CLS filter works great and allows us longer exposures than unfiltered but remember that it is light pollution dependent and we've just discovered that there's not much you can do against the moon.

With a 10" I'd say maybe 2 minutes would be enough? The CLS may get you double that. Be prepared to experiment; you've a good while before m3 rises anyway, so practise on the open clusters. Go for as long as you can on the globular.

Do post your results.

Cheers and good luck.

Thanks 😊

I thought moon would be far away from m3 by the time it's high enough to image . Yes gotta do some experiments tomorrow.

I've heard lp filters give a blue image ? How to process those photographs ?

 

[carastro]

I have imaged star clusters during a full Moon,  just choose something that is not too close to the Moon.   For star clusters, you probably only need about 3min exposures on a DSLR.

This image was taken 2 days after full Moon in Bortle 8 with 180secs exposures (but I have a mono camera which is more sensitive so shorter exposures sufficed).

https://www.astrobin.com/402302/G/?nc=user

This was taken on a full Moon in Bortle 8

https://www.astrobin.com/331878/B/?image_list_page=2&nc=&nce=

Good luck.

Carole 

Edited February 7, 2020 by carastro

[TareqPhoto]

Light pollution? I don't know what i have to say because i am in light pollution area myself, and i keep testing or experimenting with DSO targets with NB filters only mainly nebulae, i tried very few times with LRGB on M42 and M45, but that time i wasn't good in imaging, wasn't good results actually, so i hope one day soon i hope very soon really i can try LRGB again under my sky to see how bad it is really, and i assume DSLR isn't so much far from LRGB with mono although with a mono camera i have 2 main advantages, one is the sensitivity, and two the cooling as long i chose the cooled version anyway.

[Nova2000]

Which light pollution filter will be the correct match with a unmodded camera to image targets in close to natural colors ?

[MarkAR]

On 07/02/2020 at 15:34, Nova2000 said:

Which light pollution filter will be the correct match with a unmodded camera to image targets in close to natural colors ?

I looked into this myself a couple of weeks ago and from all the reviews I found online  it seems that the Optolong L-Pro has the least tint.

[Nova2000]

Is the blue tint removed by aligning the color channels (RGB) in Photoshop?

[MarkAR]

Check out AstroBackYard on Youtube, some really good advice on filters. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDim3HHq7rk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFq-y8wTp9o

 

[CloudMagnet]

4 hours ago, Nova2000 said:

Is the blue tint removed by aligning the color channels (RGB) in Photoshop?

I use the IDAS D2 filter and it gives a green tint to the picture. I normally adjust the sliders in DSS before saving the image so that each channel is layered into of each other to keep a natural tone.