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Old 16-09-2008, 10:42 PM
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Tandum (Robin)
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Light Pollution

The back of my suburban house backs onto a street. That street has 2 street lights close by, the orange one is 30 meters west and the white one is 20 meters east. Both put light into and above my back yard but I have a vine growing on the fence to block most of it from the ground, from where I view.

Obviously I'm trying to image through this barage of light and I learnt early on that I can't image west of here. I have an astonomiks light filter which easily doubled my exposure time. In fact I tried imaging last week end without it just as a reminder, and have deleted all that data as useless.

Apart from moving, which is on the cards, and shooting out the street lights, is there anything else I can do to reduce the impact of these lights.

I do have a dew guard for this scope which I have not tried yet and maybe it will improve it a little, but I doubt it. I'll try the guard on saturday night I hope.

Last edited by Tandum; 17-09-2008 at 10:24 AM.
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Old 17-09-2008, 09:04 PM
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Matty P (Matt)
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There's not much you can do about Light Pollution except for moving but assuming that is just not the cards, I guess the only option to combat Light Pollution is a LPS filter. I see you are using an Astronomik LPS and as you have said, it doubles your exposure time. There is a great thread here on IIS about LP filters and I it might be worth having a look into the Hutech IDAS LPS filter for imaging as they are great filter for blocking out LP compared to other filters. The lens shade will also help but it wont make a huge difference.

A sling shot with a couple rocks will also work.

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Old 19-09-2008, 10:30 AM
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Tandum (Robin)
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Cheers Matt, I figured I was stuffed. Looks like it's time to move.
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Old 19-09-2008, 10:58 AM
Ian Robinson
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Check out the Lumicon site for suitable filters and wavelengths that other brand filters must cut - the orange light is a Na vapour , the white one is likely Hg.
There are several filters designed to cut the light emitted by Na and Hg based lighting that will help.
I have a similar situation - white street light right in front of my house, my byard is protected from it by the house , but more white street lights in the street behing mine. And Na vapour lights along the high way about a Km away.

At least the crazy next door has stopped leaving his back Hg vapour light globe on all night - he's back in the looniebin after flipping out again , or in prison (he broke the conditions of an AVO his other neighbours had taken out against him when he flipped).
Peace is bliss !!!
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Old 19-09-2008, 04:38 PM
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Tandum (Robin)
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Cheers Ian, the bandpass of my Astronomiks and the Lumicon are almost identical looking at the charts.

I thought I might email the local council rep and ask if the street lights can be fitted with light shields. He's only hanging on in this electorate by the skin of his teeth

In the short term, I think I'd be better off with a Ha filter
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Old 19-09-2008, 06:42 PM
TrevorW
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Buy a sling shot !!!!
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Old 19-09-2008, 07:32 PM
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Robin, I bought a Ha filter today for deep sky imaging when the moon is up and for at home.... I figure its the best way to beat light pollution..

Asking the council rep might do you some good.
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Old 19-09-2008, 07:35 PM
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Tandum (Robin)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TrevorW View Post
Buy a sling shot !!!!
They just replace them. A friend of mine got on a ladder once and used a paint brush attached to a long pole to paint his side of the light with black paint. That was still there when he moved
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Old 19-09-2008, 08:06 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tandum View Post
A friend of mine got on a ladder once and used a paint brush attached to a long pole to paint his side of the light with black paint.


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Old 20-09-2008, 10:35 AM
pjphilli (Peter)
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Hi Robin
Light pollution is a (un)popular topic for us city dwellers!
My situation is about 200 metres from a main road with high sodium lights and I (like most) am also surrounded by mercury street lights. I found that
I could not get nice black skies and if I tried to adjust the light pollution out
I would loose some of the fainter nebulosity.
For some time I have fitted a IDAS LPS-P2 (31.7mm) light pollution filter to
my Meade DSI II colour camera and I have this now permanently in place.
Incidentally, I removed the previous infra red filter from the camera as the
IDAS also performs this function.
I have found that my skies are now much blacker and I can retain more nebulosity. The colour balance of this filter suits my camera well (eg no colour unbalance). Sure, I have had to about double my exposure times but
this is no problem as I guide and tend to stack 1 minute images.
One problem is the rather high cost of these filters, especially now our
dollar has dropped.
Cheers Peter
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