Pleiades (Seven Sisters)  M45  - Stellarvue 130mm @ f/5 - 2600MC - Antlia Triband RGB Ultra Filter - 5 hours  Robert Moses State Park Long Island 10/24/23

2600MC -  Gain=100  -  Exposure=120" With Antlia Triband RGB Ultra Filter. Guiding was not cooperating so much... Guiding got better as night went on to around .5 arc/sec, but the night started around .9 arc/sec. 

This was a difficult process.... One of my hardest for some reason. I kept hearing that this is a more difficult target than it seems. I thought being so bright it would be much easier.

As mentioned in my Soul (IC1848) image, I wanted to try the Antlia Triband RGB Ultra Filter on a broadband target. I have to preface with the fact that i would have done things differently if my guiding wasnt giving me such a hard time that night and maybe done 180" but I kept it to 120".

Thoughts on the Antlia Triband RGB Ultra Filter: 

Let me preface by saying that these are just my specualtions on this filter and I can't be sure that some of my critiques arent due to lack of technical ability or knowledge as an imager. That being said. I postioned this filter in the rear cell of the Stellarvue 130 where there is a place to screw in an M48 filter. This is by design by Stellarvue and is similar to how the redcat51 has a removable rear cell that houses a single M48 filter. This positions the filter around 2.5 inches in front of the 2600MC sensor. I see star halos here for sure but I did notice that many images on here of M45 have haloing because of the extremely bright stars. Haloing does seem to be more pronounced here than in most of the images I've seen though. The Soul image didn't have stars nearly as bright so it wasnt an issue. I'm not sure if the filter was positioned closer to the sensor if that would have tamed the halos more. I would definately like to resolve the haloing issue with my next iteration of M45. If anyone has any insight on how to reduce or eliminate this, I'd appreciate the input.

I think that this filter would be good at a bortle 6 or higher for broadband targets since it will do a good job of reducing skyglow, But for a bortle 5 or better, I think that I would have been better off using just the standard UV/IR cut and doing good flats. It can also be speculated that maybe more integration would have been neccessary when using this filter over just a UV/IR filter. I think for emission nebula the Triband would be good from any location to filter the desired wavelengths, add contrast, and reduce moonlite/skyglow. 

My final determination is I will keep this filter as I like getting good star color and getting both OIII and both Ha wavelengths along with the subtler SII and NII bands. I must say I do like the results with the Soul and I think that when imaging those types of narrowband targets this filter does well. For imaging broadband targets at a bortle 5 or lower I'd stick with the standard UV/IR cut. I think that from a bortle 6 or higher the Triband can be an effective broadband filter for light polluted areas, but one would need much more total integration time. 

Hope my image and thoughts help anyone looking to give this filter a try.

Uploaded a couple of images from that night and my rig

Regards,
Itto (Jim)