Imaging around full moon?

[The Lazy Astronomer]

So, I've got a potential couple of clear nights coming up over the next few days, but one of them is under a 78% illuminated moon. I use a mono camera with broadband filters (no narrowband yet - they're on the wishlist!), and my question is this:

Is there a preferable colour channel to shoot when the moon is so bright (R, G or B), or would they all be equally negatively impacted?

[teoria_del_big_bang]

I cannot give you a definitive answer as  I have nearly always used NB when approaching full moon but I would say that if you have clear nights and only broadband then I would certainly give things a go.

Some things may help:

• Shoot clusters rather than  nebula.
• If you really want to image nebulas then pick bright ones  that are away from the moon if you can.
• More shorter exposures may help. rather than fewer longer exposures.

Steve

[vlaiv]

Simple answer is - don't

Full moon in the sky can make 4-5 mags of difference in SQM reading. People recorded SQM 17-18 with full moon in their Bortle 1 sites (which is close to SQM 22).

For each SQM magnitude - your imaging time is roughly x2.5 times longer. Say you live in fairly light polluted area and 78% moon only adds 3 magnitudes of sky brightness.

That is about x15 times in exposure length. Go out on that night and image for say 6 hours. That is equivalent to 23 minutes of imaging when it is fully dark.

Besides - you need software that can properly stack high and low SNR images in order to exploit even those less than half an hour of data.

 

[DaveS]

Even with my 3 nm Astrodon or Chroma filters I get gradients around full moon. I suppose if you're desperate and the full moon is very low in the sky then H-alpha might be doable but it really is an act of desperation. I tend to only do technical stuff like checking focus at those times.