[APML]: Broadband filters and city astrophotography

[Chris Vedeler <cvedeler@bio2.edu>]

With my current schedule I have been having a really hard time getting to a
dark site to do astrophotography.  I used to have the Orion Broadband filter
that I was not all that impressed with for visual use, but I never tried it
photographically.

Setup in my yard is easy and safe, but I live right in the heart of Tucson
and the sky glow is quite obvious with limiting visual magnitude of about
4th magnitude.   I'd like to be able to take deep sky and long exposure
photographs from my yard to take advantage of the many clear and stable
nights Tucson gives us when I can't invest the time to get someplace really
dark.  How well do the Broadband filters work for photography?  Is the
Lumicon better than the Orion (I'm only interested in the photographic
qualities of these filters).  How long can one expose before sky glow sets
in with Hyped TechPan?  How about with PMJ?  How is the color response with
through these filters, i.e. do color photographs look OK?  Do these filters
help for galaxy photography as well as emission nebula?  How about doing
deep sky astrophotography with the Moon out?

Any input and sharing of experiences would be appreciated.

Thanks!
Chris Vedeler
http://www.isomedia.com/homes/cvedeler/space.htm