Efficient way to collect more data with Infrequent clear/short night ?? - Forums

Topic starter

Jul 2, 2025

Hello, I am thinking about using below strategy to maximize/collect more data based on my imaging style and constraints. I live under bortle 4.5 ~ 5.5 skies and what I have found from the last 2 years of imaging is that I collect approx 4hr of data in summers and probably double ~7-8 hr in winters. I currently have zwo 533mc pro camera and love it with my edgeHD 8 and a 4in refractor. I currently spend a night for a target and would like to increase it to 2~3 nights per target. To do this I am thinking below approach -

1. Night 1 - Collect data with 533mc pro OSC camera
2. Night 2 - Collect Luminance data with 533mm pro. (Will need to buy 533mm pro)
3. Night 3 (optional) - Collect H-alpha or OIII or both depending on target.

Based on what I have understood so far - one night of Luminance with roughly give me 3x more signal (compared to the OSC). and will use my existing OSC as RGB data
- optional one night of H-alpha with give me roughly 4x more data.
- I wont have to buy filter wheel with this approach (I am leaning towards avoiding the filter wheel as focusing will be issue, currently manual)

Would you recommend this approach or have any advice?

I will only have to buy a 533mm camera for now. btw I have a svbony CLS filter, can I use a CLS filter for capturing luminance data with monochrome camera? or does it need to be a UV/IR?

Cheers and Clear skies!

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andrea tasselli

Frequent contributor

Jul 2, 2025 · Edited: Jul 2, 2025

With your data collection limits it makes no sense whatsoever to go mono unless you have two rigs in parallel shooting the same subject and having roughly about the same FOV. As for Ha (or OIII) collecting 4x more signal is pure fantasy. You get better resolution and a slight margin in throughput (at around 10%) and that is it. Frankly I wouldn't invest more money if all you can gather in a year is 12 hours of data.

And, yes, it needs to be a UV/IR cut filter.

Amit

Topic starter

Jul 2, 2025

okay. I thought since only 0.25% of pixels in OSC camera is red, collecting h-alpha on mono would give better signal to noise and more signal. Based on what you said, I should just focus on collecting more data (2~3 nights) with existing OSC camera. Interesting.

TiffsAndAstro

Jul 2, 2025

What about HyperStar? Very efficient if you ignore cost. Makes your 8hd f2 ISH.

And other stuff ;) like star shapes, wiring, collimation.

It's my next purchase after I win lottery.

Just need to start buying tickets ;(

dummieastro

Jul 2, 2025

Hi Amit, I shoot in Bortle 4 and with ASI533MC Pro and ASI2600 MC Pro with a variety of refractors. My nightly sessions are between 2 hours and 4 hours often due to trees on my property or just needing sleep for work. I recommend 8 hours of total integration time as the beginning sweet spot, however many nights it takes to achieve it. Of course more is better. Doubling the integration time seems to make the most significant improvements. (1-2-4-8 etc.) You might also experiment with duo band filters. I shoot with an L-Enhance for nebula and UV/IR for galaxies and globular clusters. Tried the Antlia filter but thought it was just ok.

CS,
Bob

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Amit

Topic starter

Jul 2, 2025

TiffsAndAstro:
What about HyperStar? Very efficient if you ignore cost. Makes your 8hd f2 ISH.

And other stuff ;) like star shapes, wiring, collimation.

It's my next purchase after I win lottery.

Just need to start buying tickets ;(

Same here, Hyperstar would be a future purchase but mainly for FOV.

Amit

Topic starter

Jul 2, 2025

Hi Amit, I shoot in Bortle 4 and with ASI533MC Pro and ASI2600 MC Pro with a variety of refractors. My nightly sessions are between 2 hours and 4 hours often due to trees on my property or just needing sleep for work. I recommend 8 hours of total integration time as the beginning sweet spot, however many nights it takes to achieve it. Of course more is better. Doubling the integration time seems to make the most significant improvements. (1-2-4-8 etc.) You might also experiment with duo band filters. I shoot with an L-Enhance for nebula and UV/IR for galaxies and globular clusters. Tried the Antlia filter but thought it was just ok.

CS,
Bob

thanks Bob, yeah will start with doubling on the OSC data. Somehow I had this ideas based on few youtube videos etc. that my above strategy would actually give me better signal to noise and more signal compared to doubling (2nights vs 1 night) on the OSC data

andrea tasselli

Frequent contributor

Jul 2, 2025

TiffsAndAstro:
What about HyperStar? Very efficient if you ignore cost. Makes your 8hd f2 ISH.

And other stuff ;) like star shapes, wiring, collimation.

It's my next purchase after I win lottery.

Just need to start buying tickets ;(

If you omit FOV (a big IF admittedly) you'll get nearly the same results by reducing the image to the same scale (of a 440mm of FL). And saves you a lot of headaches. And tickets.

Jeff Rothstein

Jul 2, 2025

To my understanding, Andrea is absolutely right. The efficiency difference between OSC and mono is not nearly as large as our intuition, or the various claims we find online, would have us believe. If you’d like to understand why, this presentation does an excellent job: https://youtu.be/agTShJRAvqI?feature=shared

Kind regards,

Jeff

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TiffsAndAstro

Jul 2, 2025 · Edited: Jul 2, 2025

Amit:
TiffsAndAstro:
What about HyperStar? Very efficient if you ignore cost. Makes your 8hd f2 ISH.

And other stuff ;) like star shapes, wiring, collimation.

It's my next purchase after I win lottery.

Just need to start buying tickets ;(

Same here, Hyperstar would be a future purchase but mainly for FOV.

you can get similar or same fov far cheaper with a little refractor

but not at f2

TiffsAndAstro

Jul 2, 2025

andrea tasselli:
TiffsAndAstro:
What about HyperStar? Very efficient if you ignore cost. Makes your 8hd f2 ISH.

And other stuff ;) like star shapes, wiring, collimation.

It's my next purchase after I win lottery.

Just need to start buying tickets ;(

If you omit FOV (a big IF admittedly) you'll get nearly the same results by reducing the image to the same scale (of a 440mm of FL). And saves you a lot of headaches. And tickets.

Even with multi rollover lotto win, I doubt I could afford a 6 inch f2 refractor

Shawn

Jul 2, 2025

Amit:
Hello, I am thinking about using below strategy to maximize/collect more data based on my imaging style and constraints. I live under bortle 4.5 ~ 5.5 skies and what I have found from the last 2 years of imaging is that I collect approx 4hr of data in summers and probably double ~7-8 hr in winters. I...

Do you mean 4hrs cumulatively in the entire summer and 7-8hrs in the entire winter (curious where you live?), or is it per night?

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Amit

Topic starter

Jul 2, 2025

Shawn:
Amit:
Hello, I am thinking about using below strategy to maximize/collect more data based on my imaging style and constraints. I live under bortle 4.5 ~ 5.5 skies and what I have found from the last 2 years of imaging is that I collect approx 4hr of data in summers and probably double ~7-8 hr in winters. I...

Do you mean 4hrs cumulatively in the entire summer and 7-8hrs in the entire winter (curious where you live?), or is it per night?

haha, no I meant hours per night. its been only a couple years with astrophotography so I tend to find new targets when i get a chance to image, but after 2 years I am interested more in adding little bit more hours/data to improve the image

andrea tasselli

Frequent contributor

Jul 2, 2025

On a first (and second and third) read it sounded like the previous poster mentioned (and I assumed) that you were talking about TOTAL hours per summer/winter, so you got me there. Anyhow, how many hours IN TOTAL do you collect data for, per season, if I may ask?

Amit

Topic starter

Jul 2, 2025 · Edited: Jul 2, 2025

andrea tasselli:
On a first (and second and third) read it sounded like the previous poster mentioned (and I assumed) that you were talking about TOTAL hours per summer/winter, so you got me there. Anyhow, how many hours IN TOTAL do you collect data for, per season, if I may ask?

so far its been 4~6hrs per target.
From now on I would want to go for ~12hr of data per target. Thus, was asking if going mono Luminance + mono H-alpha in that additional 4-6 hours would be significant

andrea tasselli

Frequent contributor

Jul 2, 2025 · Edited: Jul 2, 2025

Amit:
so far its been 4~6hrs per target.
From now on I would want to go for ~12hr of data per target. Thus, was asking if going mono Luminance + mono H-alpha in that additional 4-6 hours would be significant

*Think more like 24 hours to 40 hours per target given you kit, regardless whether is Mono or OSC. With very fast optics you might shave those numbers down but not by a lot. It also depends on the choice of target, the brightest ones requiring less time.