DSOs are mostly disappointing visually, that’s why we call them “faint fuzzies”. There’s no substitute for time spent gathering photons so you can see the detail. It gets worse when they’re small objects in the sky… now all of a sudden you need 2000mm at f4 to get details in any normal time span unless you’ve got access to Plamadude’s toys.
As to filtering, normally all you ever see on that front is an LPR filter; and only then when someone is shooting from within populated areas to block sodium wavelengths or block all but h-alpha (which is a nice trick, it works even with a full moon). Most images are the result of good seeing and large aperture, but digital allows you to combine many exposures to increase the signal/noise ratio far beyond what a long film exposure can manage. My Ring shot was about 20 3-minute exposures, and I had to throw half out for tracking errors. This was maybe 7-8 years ago and I played with an idea that I had bounced around for a while that has since become known as “drizzling”, but my hand-made attempts are not nearly as good as what’s available now.
Thanks, Rav. I really should get out and do some more AP, even tho I still don’t have the Losmandy I’m jonesin’ for. I have much better glass at my disposal now, plus a step up from 6MP to 21MP… but good lord, that old Edmund Scientific mount I’ve got has an inspection sticker signed by Barney Rubble.
