Image with or without filter?

[smr]

Hi,

Looks like we may have a couple of clear nights here in the Midlands. I'm imaging the Horsehead and wondering whether, with the 70-80 percent Moon, to image with my L-enhance filter or not. 

I did image with the filter on to begin with and realised that everything is red, when there's quite a few other colours in this region of space, yellow and blue etc. So I then started imaging without the filter and got another 3 hours.

With the Moon at 80 percent though, I'm wondering if I should carry on imaging without the filter, or with it on, I'd rather try and get the natural RGB colours without the filter but I'm wondering if the Moon glow will wash out the nebulosity?

Camera is 2600MC Pro.

[iantaylor2uk]

I would use the L-enhance filter - below is an image I took last week with a ZWO 071 cooled camera using the L-enhance filter on my WO 81 GT IV (gain = 200, sensor cooled to -5C, 120 sec exposures, offset was default value used by ASI Air Pro) - stack of around 40 images with further processing in Nebulosity 4. 

 

[Bluemoonjim]

Think you got to suck it and see
I took this without a filter with just under half moon and have definitely got some sky glow in there... but hey, it's art!

good luck with it, with or without filter.

[mackiedlm]

If its tonight/tomorrow moon is pretty close to Orion so I'd for sure use the filter.. On this target you can still get a good colour result even with the l-enhance and if you have 3 hours of OSC RGB you can easily put the coloured stars in on top which will really help it look natural (wahatever that is in AP)

 

This was mine done a year ago at 94% moon, L-enhance, no RGB stars unfortunately.

[Bluemoonjim]

Use the filter!! 

[rickwayne]

I am usually a no-filters zealot but I have to agree here. Although since the L-Enhance passes OIII, the Moon is still going to have a noticeable effect. When I'm narrow-banding on a big-moon night, I time the sequence to capture OIII before moonrise or after moonset, and get my H-alpha during the bright time.