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Samir Kharusi | all galleries >> Galleries >> LPS-P2 or CLS? > LPS-P2 vs Narrowband
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Samir Kharusi

LPS-P2 vs Narrowband

Muscat, Oman

At left is the Network Nebula also at my home, VisLimMag 3.5, shot through an LPS-P2. No colour manipulation at all, just Custom White Balance set on daylight. In general I would say that the colours look reasonably similar to other familiar white-light captures. Middle image shows a double capture using narrowband filters, hence only a Deep Red from Ha and a pure Teal from OIII. I think it's obvious that this nebula, like many others, has some subtle colour variations, and if your site is dark enough then an LPS-P2 is a good first choice for most astro targets. Of course one can always use some enhancements from narrowband imaging, even at a dark site. Narrowband also does suppress the Milky Way dense starfields that submerge many nebulae. The wider duo-tone passbands of the CLS should yield an image somewhere in-between the left image and the middle image, but closer to the left one. The UHC (+UV/IR Blocker) would yield an image closer to the middle one. Sorry, takes far too much effort to do the actual field captures. I had to make-do with whatever I had in the drawers, my archival disk drives. Perhaps one night in the far future...

So, in conclusion? I see light pollution as falling into many levels. If your skyfog is at VisLimMag 4.5 or dimmer, then the LPS-P2 would be my first, all round choice. If your skyfog is much brighter at VisLimMag 4.0 then a good choice is the narrow-ish duo-tone Astronomik UHC (+UV/IR Blocker). If your skyfog is even worse, then it's time to go for narrow filters with passbands of 10nm or even narrower, especially on the dimmer targets. Where does the CLS fall? Somewhat a half-hearted compromise between a narrow duo-tone like the UHC(+UV/IR Blocker) and a wider, almost reaching for white-light duo-tone. But if your modded DSLR has no UV/IR Blocker at all (clear glass or nothing over the sensor) then the CLS "clip" version would be a good choice. In such a situation you cannot use the Astronomik "clip" UHC and a "clip" UV/IR Blocker simultaneously, so the CLS (or the Hutech LPS-V3) becomes a natural choice between a white-light filter like the LPS-P2 and a narrower duo-tone like the UHC(+UV/IR Blocker). How to decide? Measure your skyfog!

How to measure your skyfog: http://www.pbase.com/samirkharusi/image/37608572/original

Hutech Canon 20D,C14 Hyperstar

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