Moving back to Singapore, so astrophotography can really be done?

[cytan299]

Hi everyone,
First time poster here. I plan on moving back to Singapore after spending decades overseas. I have pretty good astro equipment (Tak and Astro-Physics stuff) and would sell them if astro-photography is not possible in Bortle 8 to 9 skies. I'm sure I have to modify what I do when I'm in Singapore. Perhaps instead of DSOs, I can do solar and planetary instead. Or only narrow band DSO is another possibility.
My questions:

• What type of astrophotography do people do in Singapore?
• How many nights a year is night photography even possible in Singapore?

Thanks for any info. And I'll be living in the east coast, if that helps.

cytan

[frwaf bfds]

Solar/planetary is very good in singapore. Due to being on the equator seeing is excellent and the planets rise to high altitudes.

Deep sky is doable but mostly restricted to narrowband imaging.

[cytan299]

Solar/planetary is very good in singapore. Due to being on the equator seeing is excellent and the planets rise to high altitudes.

Deep sky is doable but mostly restricted to narrowband imaging.

Thanks for your reply. Approximately many clear nights are there per month? Hopefully at least 1 or 2 And how does smoke impact Singapore day/nights for imaging?

cytan

[frwaf bfds]

Depends on the month. Some months seem to have clear skies more than half the time. During rainier months like now it's almost never clear. As for smoke, I never found it to be a big factor.

[cytan299]

I'm glad that some months have 50% clear skies. I've imaged through smoke before and the results are not good: everything looks brown.
Good to know is that there's hope

cytan

[Meng Lee]

Hi everyone,
First time poster here. I plan on moving back to Singapore after spending decades overseas. I have pretty good astro equipment (Tak and Astro-Physics stuff) and would sell them if astro-photography is not possible in Bortle 8 to 9 skies. I'm sure I have to modify what I do when I'm in Singapore. Perhaps instead of DSOs, I can do solar and planetary instead. Or only narrow band DSO is another possibility.
My questions:

• What type of astrophotography do people do in Singapore?
• How many nights a year is night photography even possible in Singapore?

Thanks for any info. And I'll be living in the east coast, if that helps.

cytan

Hi,

Took me 10 years to restart this hobby. I took the Leo trio from my kitchen window with a Takahashi FS-60CB with Sky90 reducer and ASI662MC + L-Pro (while pondering which cooled ZWO camera to purchase). Total integration time is 1hr 52 mins (60 secs subs) but colour balancing is a mess due to the L-Pro filter.

I guess it can be concluded that DSOs can be done here but need waaaayyyy more integration time is needed to get a usable S/N.

Meng Lee

Leo Trio 1hr 52 mins.jpg

[cytan299]

Hi Meng Lee,
From my experience, 1 hour 52 min is really insufficient to get anything decent in Bortle 7 skies (and that's my assumption, based on Bernard's rooftop astrophotography location https://singastro.org/forum2/viewtopic. ... 43#p143243 ). It'll need at least 3 hours of integration time just for assessing the shot and 6 hours to get something decent to work with.

I think, although I haven't done anything yet (still waiting for my gear to arrive), I think the major problem is getting enough clear nights to get the integration time. If it is possible to do 3 hours a night and only have 1 night/month, then it's still ok in my book. IMO, looking at the light pollution, I think the target will have to be at least 40 deg above the horizon to reduce its effects.

Personally, I'd stay away from any light pollution filters because with the LED street lights, they don't help at all anyway. With the data that you've already collected, I'd say just use it for LUM because the colours are all messed up as you noted. The only filters I'd use would be narrowband to get the H2 and O3 data. These filters will definitely help in light polluted skies.

From your experience, are the nights clear enough to do 3 hours?

cytan

[Meng Lee]

Hi cytan,

In Singapore, if the nights are clear, there will usually be passing clouds also. So always try to make your subs shorter than longer so that you throw less subs away. In this way, 3 hours of integration per clear night is possible.

Meng Lee