The Lobster NGC6357

[TrevorW]

Had a lot of issues processing this one couldn't seem to get the OIII to pop, 10hrs data taken under full moon over two nights 12 & 14th May, I also had to contend with smoke haze, due to local burn off’s, so my image data wasn't the cleanest :shrug:

[Startrek]

Generally a nice image considering conditions ( except the colour )
The Oiii signal is always going to suffer when the moon is up, more so with a OSC as you have that Bayer Matrix which bleeds Ha into your Oiii plus considerably less efficient than Mono with a dedicated Oiii filter.
The Lobster is a difficult candidate with OSC. Little or no moon around , no smoke haze plus more data would have made a huge difference.
Have you considered a dualband filter with tighter bandpass like 5nm ?

Well done for effort

Martin

[TrevorW]

You did mention this one previously on another post- ANTLIA TRIBAND II RGB ULTRA FILTER 2"



Have you any recommendations other than this

[Startrek]

Trev,
When I purchased my ZWO2600MC back in 2020 I started using a ZWO Duoband filter ( Ha 15nm , Oiii 35nm ) which was an entry level filter and worked ok but not great. Then a year later bought the Optolong L Extreme ( Ha 7nm , Oiii 7nm ) and this made a huge difference in image detail and quality however did cause excessive halos around medium to large stars. Then 8 months later I bought the Antlia ALP-T dualband filter ( Ha 5nm , Oiii 5nm ) and this was excellent, fantastic detail and almost no halos.
Really enjoyed using this filter in my Sydney B8 skies. Then a year later jump to Mono and never looked back.

I’ve never used the Antlia Triband RGB but Dave on this forum has produced some nice images under his B7 at Padstow in Sydney with this filter. I was seriously considering to use it as a luminance filter for my Mono set up ( still thinking about it)

The advantage of the Triband RGB is that it’s suppose to work well with nearly every object under heavier light polluted skies ( emission nebula , reflection nebula , clusters and even galaxies )

https://www.testar.com.au/products/antlia-triband-rgb-ultra-filter

I can certainly recommend the Antlia ALP-T dualband which now has even a tighter bandpasss at 3.5nm

https://www.testar.com.au/products/antlia-alp-t-ha-oiii-3nm-dual-band-filter

When I used the Antlia ALP-T ( 5nm ) in Sydney B8 , I was only using 2min subs as my Newt is an f4.9 ( reasonabley fast ) and did provide enough detail on the medium to bright objects. Up to 3 min on the dimmer objects. Again using the Antlia ALP-T dualband under a 3/4 to full moon resulted in sub optimal results unless your imaging the super bright objects like Lagoon or Carina and the like. Using a OSC and dualband with a 3/4 to full moon is tough work to extract some decent Oiii. I just didn’t get enough clear nights in Sydney to pour 20 to 30 hours into an object before it’s out of my semi restricted view here. I’m lucky to get 12 hours max.

Hope the above is useful

Cheers
Martin

[TrevorW]

Thanks Martin - $700 for a filter is really stretching it for me, I am a bit of a tight ass sometimes :)

[Nikolas]

Try the optolong L-Ultimate as it's cheaper than the Antlia and then use the Askar D2 which is SO2 as well you will have a much better oxygen signal using this combo but processing is much more labour intensive

[Leo.G]

Wow, I'll put the water on to boil.
Amazing shot Trevor!

[TrevorW]

Thanks for your kind words Leo :)