Testing the Optolong L-Pro light pollution filter and processing M31 (astrophotography)

An Optolong L-Pro filter review! In this video I take a look at the Optolong L-Pro light pollution suppression filter for city backyard astrophotography with your telescope and DSLR or cooled cmos camera. I also do a quick process in Pixinsight of the data taken with the L-Pro filter and show you the end result which is quite stunning considering the short amount of time I spent imaging M31 and it was taken in bortle 7/8 sky.
A big thank you to all the current subscribers and welcome to new subscribers! If you haven't subscribed yet, hit that button and bell notification now so you don't miss future videos.
The Optolong L-Pro light pollution filter bit.ly/2kggrwt
Some of my gear...
Skywatcher Esprit 100 F5.5 Triplet refractor telescope bit.ly/36w1F7Y
Moravian G3 16200EC CCD w/ 5 position FW bit.ly/2PL0qvK
William Optics Zenithstar APO refractor telescope bit.ly/2JRM1tR
QHY168C 16mp cooled cmos camera bit.ly/2NkkKTb
Optolong L-R-G-B 2" filters bit.ly/32a9Gfu
Optolong L-eNhance filter bit.ly/32a9Gfu
Skywatcher EQ mount bit.ly/2C9lap1
Skywatcher Star Adventurer bit.ly/2C9Fwyi
Pegasus Astro Focus Cube bit.ly/2qonGow
Orion Starshoot Autoguider bit.ly/34z6pbh
My website: VisibleDark.ca
Clear skies!

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Please consider subscribing to my channel for more videos! Clear skies! 🙂

[@amaimani]

Subscribed to your nice channel.

[@VisibledarkAstro]

@@amaimani Thank you! Clear skies to you! :)

[@JeffLarkin]

The post-processing work was the most valuable part of this, I'm so glad I hung on through that. Thanks for sharing.

[@markmayer9290]

I'm an 'advanced' beginner with PI - your processing videos are great teaching tools and easy to follow. I take notes and screen shots to help me remember what to do for my own images. Very much appreciated.

[@jimwaters304]

As always Shawn a good video with very useful tips and information.

[@bobsastrophotography7812]

Thanks Shaun for sharing how to do a quick process on M31 & your experience on using the Optolong L-Pro filter. Clear Skies My Brother In Astrophotography…

[@matthilton8959]

I have this filter and can't wait to shoot this again with my OSC, I've only done it once before with my DSLR, it was seeing this pop up on the back of that camera that got me hooked on this hobby. Pixinsight is on the list too.

[@tullyfisher]

I'm also using the L-Pro filter..essential in the city... - Amazing PI tutorial. - VERY helpful. - Thanks Shawn! cs

[@jimmydigital00]

30:27 mark I almost fell out of my chair!! LOL Nice video, tons of information.

[@paulking6293]

Thank you Shawn for your informative videos, been a great help to see you do these routines rather than trying to drag it from a book, very intuitive, again...great work Paul from down under.

[@77BlackKnight]

Very informative and great video.I have orderd the Optolong L-Pro filter from China when i saw this video. I use a Baader planetarium neodymium moon skyglow filter under heavy bortel 8 - 9 skies here in Stockholm. In the suburb. I shoot the M31 Andromeda and M45 Pleades with my Celestron Egde 800 HD with Hyperstar V4 at F/1.9 and will compare to the Optolong L-Pro. Hope to achive clearer data to process in pixinsigt. I shoot with a Zwo 294 Pro Cooled. Trying somthing diffrent. *Clear Skies*

[@skychild9752]

Awesome image. Fantastic video. Thanks Shawn!

[@siegfriednoet]

Very interesting to see a bit of your workflow, great video thank you, looks like the L-pro is doing a good job. But to see really how it performs we should have seen an edit or an unedited stack without using the filter

[@RaysAstrophotography]

Well done Shawn!

[@nathanduso9802]

Nice review and process!

[@alanalain4884]

Captivating. and awesome edit... Hi, you got another instant subscriber and thank you for the video... Does any of your video mention what computer specs you're using to run Pixinsight ? Thank you...

[@VisibledarkAstro]

I'm not running anything fancy. Ryzen 2700 8 core, 32gb ram and SSD drives.

[@alanalain4884]

@@VisibledarkAstro Thank you for your insight, much appreciated !..

[@rahulzota9427]

Great video. Have you ever tested a clip-in version of these?

[@VisibledarkAstro]

No I haven't. Results would be similar though I'd imagine. Cheers!

[@RonLoxton]

Great video. I'm south of you in Cambridge. Will the Optolong L-Pro work to shoot galaxies in the area with an unmodified DSLR?

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Hi Ron - yes for sure! The L-pro will help to boost contrast and reduce light pollution effects when shooting broadband with your unmodified DSLR. KW Telescope in Kitchener has new stock of the L-pro currently.

[@karcoms]

Nice video. Thank you. May I ask why you have 3 scopes there? One is the main telescope used for imaging. One at the bottom of it is the auto guider set up. what is the one on the top for?

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Thanks for watching! The one on top is a shorter focal length, widefield refractor. I switched between it and the larger refractor depending on what I was imaging.

[@karcoms]

@@VisibledarkAstro Cool. I sent you an email about an edit I'm trying to make with the Orion molecular cloud complex.

[@terohiekkalinna]

Very informative video! Many thanks!

[@tomtoka]

new to your channel, and you are doing an amazing job, can you share image info? how long was the exposure?

[@VisibledarkAstro]

I'll have to look it up. Don't recall.

[@gabrielperuzzo9759]

Hi Shawn, I received this filter yesterday. I have an ESPRIT 100ED with ASI1600mm + EFW. what I don´t know is how to insert this filter in my optical train. I can srew it in one of the ASI1600 spacers, but in the other side of the filter I have no thread to attached to the telescope flatner. Is it necessary any other adapter? or I missed something? thanks a lot for your support

[@hurdpcs2802]

Shawn (I hope I got that right), I am following your tutorial and I have picked up on A LOT! One thing, at about 18:27 in the video you a do a before and after image. I noticed the mouse didn't move. How did you perform the before/after? Dale

[@hurdpcs2802]

Nevermind.... I just found your video!

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Yes you got it right! :) ... so at the point in the video I have a preview window selected and I'm pressing CTRL-Shift and Z to flip back and forth. You can only do that in a preview window.

[@glentyan2505]

The problem I see here for many astro-imagers is that HP & LP Sodium lamp glow has been replaced by LED lighting which is blue oriented but broad spectrum. This spectrum blocking looks similar to other LP filters such as IDAS which are being sold off by users because they don't block the Blue pollution. Hutech I believe have released an LED blocking filter though I have no details. That said there are many imagers who feel a filter like this improves sky penetration and contrast and my own extended trials that require longer subs are inconclusive. Here is Optolong's Blurb .... Optolong L-Pro (L-Professional) filter is designed to improve the visibility of various deepsky objects. By selectively reducing the transmission of wavelengths of light pollutants, specifically those produced by artificial lightings including mercury vapor lamps, both high & low pressure sodium vapor lights and the unwanted natural light caused by neutral oxygen emission in our atmosphere (i.e. skyglow). Together with the highly transparent in main nebula emission lines at OIII(496nm and 500nm), H-beta (486nm), NII(654nm and 658nm), H-alpha(656nm) as well as SII(672nm), the filter is suitable for enhancing the contrast and details for both visual and photograghic purpose at sub-rural area with heavy light pollution. Optolong L-Pro is multi-bandpass filter which offers better color balance by maximizing the transmission band. The balanced transmission allows astrophotos to be taken with minimal color cast to broadband emission objects such as galaxies, reflection nebulae and globular star clusters. L-Pro is the best choice for light pollution suppression.

[@enriqueboeneker]

Great video, Shawn! Learned a lot of new things on Pixinsight processing. Just one question. How do you compare the Optolong L-Pro against the Optolon L-eNhance? I am unfortunately an astrophotographer with a tight budget and cannot afford both of them.

[@enriqueboeneker]

VisibleDark Thanks again, Shawn! I am tempted to buy then the L-eNhance for emmission nebula and still deal meanwhile with my Baader Moon and Sky Glow for the other stuff (and for the stars). Clear and dark skies!

[@newbee1016]

@@VisibledarkAstro Then what of the ZWO Dual Band Filter thrown into the mix, how does it compare to the other two. I live in a class 4 area so not too bad considering. I am considering either one of these filters as well. I have a stock Canon EOS 1300D, and the ZWO ASI224MC cooled color camera I haven't used either much, owing to crap weather. Would like to hear your views on this ZWO DB Filter, Robert, From down under.

[@combatwombat71]

Great easily follow'able video, but what was the cause of the thin dark purple stripe running horizontally across the image towards the bottom? It was always there throughout the process.

[@mikebritton2084]

I have horrible halos around bright stars. I was shooting 5 min subs then dropped to 3 min. No joy. Any suggestions?

[@KB2AT]

Another great video shawn....I use the L Pro on both esprit 80 and rasa8. Still trying to figure out your guidescope mount lol.

[@JulioCruzcoach]

@@VisibledarkAstro Can i also get those? Would be great if i can image with both my 127 and AT72 with a guidescope underneath like that. :)

[@omaracosta3542]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge... being a newbie, it really helps.

[@Ursamo]

Excellent!!!!! Quick question does 5 min subs are enough or should i add different subs

[@kunenekutete6856]

Great video. What processing software is that?

[@hael8680]

Does it block LED light pollution ?

[@VisibledarkAstro]

It is a good question. It will help reduce some of the effects of LED light pollution but not entirely. LED is broadband light and that makes it difficult to isolate. The filter will however block some wavelengths that artificial light exists in just not all when it come to LED. I've had good success though with the Lpro shooting from a bortle 7/8 sky with LED street lights around.

[@hael8680]

@@VisibledarkAstro Thank you for this. Do you have a video somewhere of the same object, the same night, half the subs with the filter and half without?

[@rvoykin]

I don’t shoot in light polluted skies but I’m interested in this so I can shoot when the moon is out, do you think it would help in that way? I’m not talking full moon or anything but the week before or the week after the new moon are usually like to go out when it’s 25 to 40%

[@ppi57]

New Sub here Shawn. You gave me something to aim for... beautiful!. How did you process your subs? did you calibrate the lights with Master darks, flats, & bias?... Is it possible to share your complete process from the start? Cheers

[@zefrem1]

How much was your complete setup, Mount scope, camera, filters

[@KB2AT]

Shawn....still using 168C? What type of gain offset bbn is used on this image?

[@SuperKevinFS]

I have this filter it is impossible to get focused any advice would be appreciated

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Hard to help without a lot more info. But I doubt it's the filter. Is your backfocus set correctly for the scope and camera? If not you may not be able to focus properly.

[@SuperKevinFS]

@@VisibledarkAstro my BF is spot on. When I focus with no filter get a perfect curve as soon as the filter is added and I do a refocus the AF fails

[@icespray247]

I bought this and had ridiculous amount of internal reflections on the picture. I eventually had to tape the filter ring to get rid of them :( Perhaps I was just unlucky as it seems to me that everyone else had good results.

[@denbergeron]

Very interesting video Shawn. Thank you

[@DarkArtsAstrophotography]

Just curious - how do these perform at blocking out moon light? Have you tested this?

[@DarkArtsAstrophotography]

@@VisibledarkAstro Cool. Yeah, I'm asking for a friend who's in a tossup between the 2 filters for his camera. He definitely wants to block moon light, but also light pollution. Personally, I'd prefer just use my duo-narrowband filter on suitable targets when the moon is out.

[@Astro-George]

@@DarkArtsAstrophotography Don't forget that the L-Pro is more suited towards Galaxy/Star captures and the L-Enhance is more effective towards capturing Nebula and wouldn't work so well with Galaxy captures.

[@ruiyang5995]

How did you turn a green image to a colorful image?

[@VisibledarkAstro]

The green appearance is just do the autostretch method applied. If you just click the autostretch it will apply it in a linked mode. If you hold cntrl key and click the autostretch icon, it will apply it in an unlinked mode which will not display as green then. Cheers!

[@paulradford6902]

Nice processing. Fancy doing my M31? 😁

[@paulradford6902]

@@VisibledarkAstro ok I'll email it over

[@shawnnielsen]

IMPORTANT!! This is Shawn of Visibledark Astrophotography... An FYI for subscribers... my channel was hacked and I'm locked out from admin of it. Cannot upload new videos or edit or don't receive emails for new comments. I am not getting any help from KZbin currently. They don't seem to have any support in place to help. So I'm not sure what I can do or what to do but I wanted to let folks know. I may have to start over sadly. :(

[@astrophotonics9470]

30:27 lmao in your face outro

[@billtinsley5385]

I used Shawn's technique on this video and I got my best galaxy processing to the day. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Awesome! Thanks for the comment Bill and for watching. Glad the vids are helpful! Cheers.

[@roostaCSGO]

Would you be willing to share your process icons file? I am in the process of building my own based on what works for me, and I am looking to mimic your settings for MLT and MMT. I also am curious at what the differences would be from the defaults for some of the other processes. Thanks a bunch for the informative videos.

[@figzastro-photography]

Great video, is there a way to add the Pro filter to pixnsight before the weighted batch processing?

[@VisibledarkAstro]

Depending on the camera used, most of the cmos cams are Sony, I use the Sony uv/ir for each filter for my Lpro data. Works just fine.

[@Nottsboy24]

Nice upload 👍new subscriber here 🙌

[@Nottsboy24]

@@VisibledarkAstro no problem

[@osamadessouky802]

Hi Shawn Would appreciate some advice on processing with LPS filters other than the L-Pro? I used my IDAS LPS V4, which has a much smaller spectrum, on M51 with my OSC 294MC Pro. Would there be big differences in the work flow? I would really like to send you the stacked FIT, if at all possible, and follow your workflow in processing in PI. I took 40 subs @240s @-10C. Please let me know if that’s possible? Many thanks.

[@GarnettLeary]

Optolong is a fantastic company. Great customer support and promotion too. Very friendly group.

[@whatmattersmost6725]

Shawn, please update how many subs, you said 5 min subs for 3.5 hr? So this was only 42 subs? WOW AWESOME, Thank you

[@Si-fp2ij]

Great video Shawn! Enjoyed the processing in Pixinsight too.

[@surfer4329]

Chuck Ayoub uses the LPro for luminance.

[@Aerostar509]

What shortcut keys are you using to do the before/after switch? Nice video.

[@Aerostar509]

@@VisibledarkAstro No results when I try it.

[@matthilton8959]

What did you stack the data in?

[@JulioCruzcoach]

Great video Shawn! Very informative! :)

[@philippedeschenes470]

Hi Shawn, have you been able to compare a shot of M31 without the filter? Would be interesting to assess the value of this filter on broadband targets as these are mostly used in the context of light emission nebulae. Also, can you share the exposure time for your subs that you used? many thanks!

[@Thunder_Dome45]

On this image he says he used 5 minute subs for 3.5 hours. That was towards the end of this video.

[@philippedeschenes470]

@@Thunder_Dome45 sorry, missed that. Thanks!

[@Thunder_Dome45]

@@philippedeschenes470 you're welcome.

[@eduardomenezes4924]

Great video, Shawn! Do you mind sharing some subs files?

[@eduardomenezes4924]

VisibleDark that’s right, just to get an idea of how much light pollution the filter suppresses. Or maybe you could post an unfiltered sub vs a filtered one. Thank you 👍

[@eduardomenezes4924]

Sorry, not the stack.

[@eduardomenezes4924]

VisibleDark great! Thank you very much! :)