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Trying to get a clean shot of the Orion Nebula from my backyard in Phoenix took me five nights
I mean, the light pollution map said it was a yellow zone, but the haze from the city just killed the contrast every single time. Anyone else fight a losing battle with suburban skies and have a trick that actually works?
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the_jessica5d ago
Read a blog post from a guy who images from a red zone. He said he basically gave up on broadband targets like Orion and switched to narrowband filters. Lets the specific wavelengths through but blocks the city glow. Sounds like a whole different setup though.
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murray.drew5d ago
Yeah, yellow zones lie. The real trick is waiting for those super clear nights after a rain, even if it's rare. I stack way more short exposures, like hundreds of 30-second shots, to fight the noise from the haze. A light pollution filter helps a bit, but dialing back your expectations is the main thing. You just won't get the same data as a dark site, so process for what you can actually pull out.
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My first year in a Bortle 6 zone I was so stubborn about shooting galaxies. After reading Murray's method about stacking hundreds of short exposures, I finally tried it on the North America Nebula last month. It completely changed how I see my local sky. I still use a filter, but accepting the limits and just gathering tons of data made a bigger difference than any gear.
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