Talk to me about light pollution filters

[West Coast Birder]

I’m not in a position to drive to dark skies at the current time, so my observations have to be from my suburban backyard.

So the question is - how to deal with light pollution. I’m interested in wide field and DSOs, so wondering if light pollution filters work without compromising the images and if so what are good ones? And do they go in front of the lens? Or between the lens and the imager?

Advice and recommendations welcome!

 

[By-tor]

I'm no expert at this and learning all the time, but I have been shooting for a few years now from my Bortle class 4 backyard using an Optolong L-Enhance narrow band filter with great results. These filters only allows certain wave lengths of light to pass through to the sensor blocking most of the unwanted city light pollution. Optolong has since released the L-Extreme and now the L-Ultimate that allow even narrower bands of light through.

The filter would go between the camera and the telescope either alone or in a filter wheel. I use a ZWO 5 position electronic filter wheel (EAF) that I can control through the ASIAIR Pro and App.

To find out the light pollution in your location use the site below. Click on the map and it will give you a Bortle class number. The lower the number the dark the night sky.
https://www.lightpollutionmap.info

If you have not found this site already its a great place to find answers to all the questions you may have.

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Hope this helps..

Clear skies...

 

[West Coast Birder]

Awesome, just what I needed! Thank you so much!!

 

[SiriusDoggy]

Just to throw a little curve ball into the conversation, everything By-tor said is correct, but the filters he mentioned do cut out a great deal of the "natural" RGB light. Especially the L-eXtreme and L-eNhance (Yes, that's how they spell them...) are basically dual narrowband filters that block most of the light except for Ha and OIII narrowband light. That's not a horrible thing though as you are still able to create some amazing color images like these that I shot with a color camera and L-eXtreme filter from my Bortle 8-9 backyard. If you want to try and keep the colors as "real" as possible while still helping with the light pollution, you may want to try Antlia's new RGB Ultra. I have heard many good things about this filter. I was hoping Santa was going to bring me one for Christmas but all I got was a bag of coal. Guess I was on the naughty list this year.

 

[West Coast Birder]

Thank you, Greg!