New to Narrowband Imaging.... - Forums

Topic starter

Dec 24, 2023

Howdy folks. I have lurked a little bit here and there on the forums, and generally have used Astrobin to post my own images at times to see my own personal growth with astrophotography. Recently, I picked up a mono camera I caught on sale for a really good deal, the ASI183MM Pro, to be precise. I have wanted to take the plunge for some time now, as I've heard that one of the benefits is it does allow slightly easier imaging on either side of a full moon.

I would assume in general, any data acquired without a full moon will be much better, regardless of filter, than with a full moon. To that end - and finally to my question, I have a general set of LRGB, and a set of HSO filters. Under a new moon, I would assume that would be the best time to gather luminance and Oiii/Sii, correct? How close to the full moon do you gather data?

It probably does sound like a rather ignorant question, but I'm typically used to not even dragging my gear out with the OSC on nights near a full moon (even more so if a target is nearby the moon as well. When would be the ideal time to shoot? I've certainly learned a lot over the last 10 months with this hobby, and look forward to learning more, but I'm venturing into unknown territory, for the most part. Most of this year I spent a little time learning a bit more about the night sky, understanding the most basics and this coming year I'd like to work on improving myself, either by ensuring I make the most of my time on given targets, acquiring suitable amounts of data, etc.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this.

Respectful

Miguel T.

Dec 24, 2023 · Edited: Dec 24, 2023

Quality images come from attention to details from A to Z, and that includes choosing the right filter for the night you're given as you've noticed.

LGB and Oiii on the darkest skies as they're the most affected by light pollution.
Ha, Sii and R when the moon is out. Sii is even deeper in the red than Ha and is the least affected by light pollution.

Understand the difference between transparency and seeing for this part:
On a lot of nebula, I find that a sufficient Oiii signal is harder to get. Use the skies with best transparency on this filter or whichever has the least signal on your particular target (should be either Oiii or Sii, there's always plenty of Ha).
I use the Ha as luminance on narrowband images to make the details pop. On a moon night with exceptional seeing, do your Ha for the sharpest details and keep the average seeing for the Sii.

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Amos B.

Topic starter

Dec 24, 2023

Miguel T.:
Quality images come from attention to details from A to Z, and that includes choosing the right filter for the night you're given as you've noticed.

LGB and Oiii on the darkest skies as they're the most affected by light pollution.
Ha, Sii and R when the moon is out. Sii is even deeper in the red than Ha and is the least affected by light pollution.

Understand the difference between transparency and seeing for this part:
On a lot of nebula, I find that a sufficient Oiii signal is harder to get. Use the skies with best transparency on this filter or whichever has the least signal on your particular target (should be either Oiii or Sii, there's always plenty of Ha).
I use the Ha as luminance on narrowband images to make the details pop. On a moon night with exceptional seeing, do your Ha for the sharpest details and keep the average seeing for the Sii.

Thank you for the thorough feedback. That's exactly what I was wanting to hear, and had general idea that was likely the case but I wanted advice from those with arguably much more experience than myself.

Well Written Respectful

Oscar

Dec 24, 2023

Miguel T.:
LGB and Oiii on the darkest skies as they're the most affected by light pollution.
Ha, Sii and R when the moon is out. Sii is even deeper in the red than Ha and is the least affected by light pollution.

huh, not even I knew about that. I gotta take a screenshot of this.

Miguel T.

Dec 24, 2023

Amos B.:
Miguel T.:
Quality images come from attention to details from A to Z, and that includes choosing the right filter for the night you're given as you've noticed.

LGB and Oiii on the darkest skies as they're the most affected by light pollution.
Ha, Sii and R when the moon is out. Sii is even deeper in the red than Ha and is the least affected by light pollution.

Understand the difference between transparency and seeing for this part:
On a lot of nebula, I find that a sufficient Oiii signal is harder to get. Use the skies with best transparency on this filter or whichever has the least signal on your particular target (should be either Oiii or Sii, there's always plenty of Ha).
I use the Ha as luminance on narrowband images to make the details pop. On a moon night with exceptional seeing, do your Ha for the sharpest details and keep the average seeing for the Sii.

Thank you for the thorough feedback. That's exactly what I was wanting to hear, and had general idea that was likely the case but I wanted advice from those with arguably much more experience than myself.

You'll love the versatility of mono. Also, there is no golden rule saying that one should put equal hours of integration on each filter. You'll want to achieve a reasonable SNR on all three narrowband filters and that usually result in putting more time on Oiii and Sii than Ha. If the SNR is too low, even NoiseXTerminator wont cut it and the patchy patterns from the denoise will be visible in the final image. The Soul Nebula that I'm about to post has:

Ha: ~6 hours
Sii: ~8 hours
Oiii: ~18 hours

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Lynn K

Dec 24, 2023

The effects of light pollution and the moon on OIII narrowband imaging depends on the particular band width of the filter. A 12nm filter will greatly be effected, where a 3nm filter will be less so. I am in Bortle 7 skies. I have found a 3nm OIII to be necessary to obtain reduced noise background level to be easily processed. Also a 3nm OIII requires less time/subs to get adequate noise level.

However, 6nm Ha produces very good S/N.

Lynn K.

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