In Praise of OSC

[glend (Glen)]

First off let me declare that this is an 'opinion piece'. For the last several months I have been grappling with the world of mono/narrow band imaging and it really has increased my appreciation for my OSC camera. I pulled out the colour camera last night to have an easy enjoyable night imaging. Don't get me wrong, narrow band imaging is certainly the peak of achievement (or maybe perseverance). Narrow band requires special equipment, patience, great guiding especially at long focal lengths, time, did I say patience, and more time, a love of processing and the tools to do it, not to mention money.
I don't particularly like spending my time building Clipping Mask/Layer false colour control structures and aligning different filter images, but narrow band requires that knowledge or that of other tools that function in similiar ways. For people starting out in imaging, it is my recommendation that you start with OSC and stick with it until you feel you have explored all it can offer; if your still wanting more in terms of creativity, and live in a light polluted area, maybe narrowband is for you.
It doesn't have to be the OSC DSLR world, although wonderful images are produced, there are many great reasonably priced OSC CCD cameras that are within reach of DSLR type budgets (like a ATIK 383L with the KAF-8300 chip).
I have a mate here that owns some top line CCD equipment, but has consistently struggled to produce anything, and recently discovered his expensive camera was stuffed. He dived right in to the deep end of imaging and never enjoyed the success of OSC. I will still strive for some reasonable narrow band capability, but it has given me a new appreciation for OSC, and freedom it provides.

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

yep definitely stick to dslr or OSC when starting out!
something satisfying about being able to finish an image off even if the clouds roll in earlier than expected.

I will say one other benefit of NB is that you can capture at pretty much full moon and the data wont be too badly affected where as OSC or RGB will be. But you could still capture Ha on your OSC at this time to add some more details.

[Eden (Brett)]

I use an OSC at the moment and looking back I wish I had started off with a monochrome sensor. OSC is considerably less sensitive, regardless of which sensor you have and having post-processed both OSC and narrowband images, there's not realistically any noteworthy difference with respect to complexity. Monochrome imaging with narrowband filters will always give you more control over the end result and as Russ mentioned, you have the added benefit of being able to do productive imaging when the Moon in present.