LED street lights and Light Pollution Filters

As far as I remember the spectrum is too broad

l.e.d. lights also effect electronics in close proximity. I switched to led in my garage/shop and my transmitters stopped working until I removed them. Not sure if this effect extends to a larger scale.

Hi Tareq,

Seems we cannot change “Progress”. In my little corner of the world, they put up LED streetlights, but they are directed (Shielded?) to only light the street and a little spill onto the sidewalks. So, not too bad. The old HPS fixtures were horrible and just generally shined everywhere.

Behind me and across a drainage channel is a condominium complex. They changed their outside area lighting to LED bulbs. So, their light pollution went way up. On our back wall (concrete block) I put up a fence topper so effectively I have an 8-foot fence.

My previous neighbors moved away and we got a couple who seemed to delight in being female dogs with their backyard lighting. I asked them to turn off their lighting when they weren’t using their backyard. That only served for them to be even more obnoxious. I told him I would put a wall topper on my wall. And in two days the same company was able to do it.

So, at first, we felt like we were living in a Bin Lauden compound, our backyard surrounded with 8 high fence all around. His wife had a hissy-fit when the guys were putting the topper on their side. They are horrible neighbors.

But it serves to block much of the direct idiot light pollution. For the rest, I have an Antlia Quad LP filter, and a newer Svbony SV220 light pollution filter I can use in a filter drawer on my telescope. I like it because I can experiment shooting with one, then the other, like I did last night. (Still stacking, so sorry no examples as yet.

I used to use filter wheels and shoot 7 different filters. But now I’ve just resigned myself to an ASI2600MC Pro camera, and LP filters. I’m really happy with my simple, fast imaging results.

Anyway, you can compare these two filters and see if they might help you where you are. They help me, although the SV220 seems to be quite red for me.

📷 Horsehead and Flame Nebulas w/ SV220 LP filter

https://app.astrobin.com/i/pytjxh/

Tareq Abdulla · Dec 6, 2025, 08:13 PM

Hi Sonny,

Thank you very much for your post, nice to read about what you are facing and i understand.

I live in a city, but i can’t describe about my area is it an urban or town or suburb or what exactly, in the past we had those yellow lights which were so noisy and spread everywhere, then they changed it into LED, the lights in my street is almost shielded as well but not fully, it is not lighting the whole sky or a lot, but it is lighting my yard because the lights are in front of my house towards North direction, so Polaris and around are affected, but all around are ok, my house is covering the South direction, and by East or West the neighbors houses without much of light, so i know i can get signal but not that great, and zenith is nice, but i stopped doing imaging since they placed and operated LED lights 5 years ago.

I keep thinking about that Antlia Quad LP filter for my OSC camera, while for dual band i already have L-Ultimate but still didn’t test it since i stopped, for me narrowbanding isn’t a problem, only broadbanding, i need to do imaging to see how bad it is nowadays, i might have good conditions really, but i really gave up mainly because of gear rather than LP, but i am preparing my new gear to be back and test, i have different plans but i also do planetary and solar, DSO is a bit headache, once i am ready i will do DSO hopefully as it should be despite the light pollution.

Hi Tareq,

When I first purchased my ASI2600MC Pro I tried it without any filters. Then decided to get the Quad filter. My first ever multi-band filter.

I got the usual panic by others about the IR cut filtering, but honestly, I don’t see any detriment to my images with the Quad filter.

My SV220 2” LP filter is fairly new to me. So, I’m still experiencing what it can do. But I like it. And I like having the option of trying them with a simple filter drawer change.

At this point Light Pollution is about all that bothers me in my imaging. I can’t do much about the Moon, which is being obnoxious right now. Except aim Northeastward tracking to Northwestward. 😒

But for me, the LP filters fit quite well for my LP woes. I use 2” because my camera has an APS-C sized sensor. So, I err towards a bigger filter with a bigger “sweet spot”.

Back when I was thinking about trying Astrophotography, I looked at the different disciplines and decided I wanted DSO and Nebula specifically. I’ve never changed, although I have used my equipment for occasional clusters, blood moon, and on very rare excursions some Planetary. (We got the biggest reactions the first summer when I stacked two Barlows and everything I had into the eyepiece holder to fill that 80mm Triplet telescope with Saturn.) First time any of us saw the planet and the rings. But the telescope looked hilarious with all that stuff hanging out of the eyepiece holder.

Over the years I’ve played with this so much has changed and improved. After 11 years with my ED80T CF, I finally stepped into my AT 130mm EDT. Brought everything closer.

I have no idea if any LP filtering works for visual, or if it would be terrible. I started out for AP and here I am still deeply engrossed in my quest.