Achieving Better Astrophotography at Home

[glappkaeft]

Oh, that doesn't sounds good you had to stop doing astronomy, is the light pollution so bad at your current place?

No, actually the sky is better here, there is no 2.5 million population city 70 km away and there are three nearby (30 km) areas with dark skies instead of two. The local astronomy club however has no dark site observatory. I'm in Sweden and I don't fancy being alone on a deserted forestry road in the middle of the night in -30C with no heat or power setting everything up from scratch every time. The lack of company then makes it very hard to become motivated to observe or do astrophotography. I still do some astronomy especially in autumn and I go to star parties.

Honestly, I am bit afraid to jump directly to OIII filter, isn't it too much specialized? On the other hand, it could better suppress the light pollution... I found this link useful when comparing UHC and OIII filters - the guy was doing test with 4 types of filters on some popular nebulas.

Regarding the emission lines, it seems there are two groups of UHC filters. All of them transmit Hβ and OIII lines, but regarding Hα, some of the filters block the near-red band (eg. Orion Ultrablock) and some of them transmit it, including Hα (Astronomik UHC), comparison here. Do you have experience with both types?

EDIT: sorry, Lumicon UHC is blocking Hα line

I'd get the UHC before the OIII for the same reason you stated.

Hα is almost exclusively useful only for photography, it's a much stronger emission line compared to Hβ but our eyes are very bad at detecting Hα. I don't know if I have looked through a UHC with Hα transmission but I _have_ looked through a photographic Hα filter and at that was useless on everything.

Not to chase you away but have you tried https://stargazerslounge.com/ ? It's a very active and friendly amateur astronomy forum and there is a huge number of threads there already about filters.

 

[davenn]

Not to chase you away but have you tried https://stargazerslounge.com/ ? It's a very active and friendly amateur astronomy forum and there is a huge number of threads there already about filters.

completely agree ... great forum. joined up there late last year several months after I got into solar Ha observing and imaging.
Most of my posts are in the solar sections of the forums

Dave

 

[lomidrevo]

I'm in Sweden and I don't fancy being alone on a deserted forestry road in the middle of the night in -30C with no heat or power setting everything up from scratch every time.

oh, those are really tough conditions!

Hα is almost exclusively useful only for photography, it's a much stronger emission line compared to Hβ but our eyes are very bad at detecting Hα. I don't know if I have looked through a UHC with Hα transmission but I _have_ looked through a photographic Hα filter and at that was useless on everything.

ok, it seems that UHC filters blocking the red band should do better job during visual observations.

Not to chase you away but have you tried https://stargazerslounge.com/ ? It's a very active and friendly amateur astronomy forum and there is a huge number of threads there already about filters.

completely agree ... great forum. joined up there late last year several months after I got into solar Ha observing and imaging.
Most of my posts are in the solar sections of the forums

I visited and read discussions on several similar forums, but I probably missed this one, I'll check it - thanks for the hint. But anyway, I was interested in the opinions of community over here on PF, and I am glad that I could get it - thank you all for your feedback!

 

[sophiecentaur]

The lack of company then makes it very hard to become motivated to observe or do astrophotography.

That's the truth! Even working in ones back garden can get stressful when things start to go wrong. The brain works a lot better with another one nearby to bounce ideas off. I imagine your forest roads may not have a good internet signal either.

 

[lomidrevo]

In case someone is interested, here is a brief review of my new UHC filter (orion ultrablock). It took me some time to try it, because I didn't have a lot opportunities for stargazing last weeks, but yesterday I manage it finally.
Although it provided only just slightly better contrast in case of ring nebula (M57), in case of dumbbell (M76) not only contrast was better, but I could see the nebula bit larger as the outer areas that were unseen before, emerged.
When I checked the HII regions in Sagittarius, the improvement with filter was even better. Without the filter, I could barely see any nebulosity of lagoon (M8) or eagle nebula (M16), only the star clusters. With the filter, the nebulae emerged and could be seen very nicely. Swan nebula (M17) showed details which I haven't seen before without the filter.
Saying shortly, I don't regret the purchase and I am happy with the filter - it makes a difference under my area (suburban) conditions.