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A guy at my astronomy club said you can't shoot deep sky from a Bortle 7 backyard, so I tried it for 40 nights
Back in March a retiree named Walt at my local astronomy club in Cleveland told me point blank that deep sky imaging from my Bortle 7 driveway was a waste of clear nights, and he said I should drive 2 hours east to a dark site or not bother at all. I almost believed him since he has been shooting for 30 years, but the drive was killing me, so I just stayed home and stacked 40 nights of 3 minute subs on the same target with my little 72mm scope. Turns out his advice was flat out wrong for my setup, because after about 18 hours of total integration the noise smoothed out and I pulled real color and dust lanes out of a galaxy that he said would never show from my zip code. The trick was shooting narrowband and a ton of frames, not chasing darker skies, and now I feel dumb for all the gas money I burned driving out to the middle of nowhere. Walt still swears it can't work and won't look at my final stack, which is honestly kind of funny. Has anyone else had an old timer tell them their rig or location was hopeless, and did you prove them right or wrong?
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jennyb677d ago
Honestly narrowband from the city is the move and Walt is just stuck in his old ways. Light pollution kills broadband but it barely touches Ha and OIII, so stacking 18 hours of 3 min subs in a Bortle 7 driveway makes total sense. Some old timers act like dark skies are the only answer when their real problem is they never shoot enough integration time. Gas money stays in your pocket and the galaxy still shows up, that's a win.
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