Spent $80 on a light pollution filter for my old telescope and it changed everything

I picked up a used Sky-Watcher EQ5 mount off Craigslist for cheap but the photos from my backyard always came out orange. That filter cut through the streetlight glow enough to actually see the Orion Nebula clear for the first time. Has anyone else tried stacking filters to get better results from a city lot?

3 comments

3 Comments

noahmartin1mo agoTop Commenter

Stacked a $25 UHC filter with that same Orion one and got rid of most the orange.

claire_hart531mo ago

Gotta respectfully disagree here. I tried that exact combo with my f/2.8 lens and the results were honestly pretty disappointing. The UHC filter cut down on the light so much I lost a ton of detail in the nebula, and the Orion one didn't even touch the orange halo around my bright stars. Maybe my skies are worse than yours, but I ended up with a weird green cast on everything instead. Actually got better results just using a simple UV cut filter and tweaking the white balance in post. Sometimes less really is more with these budget stacks lol.

ray_miller841mo agoMost Upvoted

Wait, have you tried stacking them the other way around? I used to swear by the whole "more filters = better" approach, but @claire_hart53 your post really MADE me rethink that. I had the exact same green cast problem with a similar setup on my 135mm f/2, and it drove me NUTS until I just pulled both filters off entirely. You're dead right that the UV cut plus white balance trick actually cleaned up my M42 shots way more than those cheap stacked filters ever did. I still keep the UHC for heavy light pollution nights but I learned the hard way that too many budget filters DO muddy everything up.