Monday, August 8, 2011

M20 after DSLR modification

I got a Hap Griffith IR blocking filter (Astrodon) for my Canon 350d that I had decided to modify on my own. It was quite a challenge and not something I would recommend doing for anyone that doesn't have experience working with very small electronic components (imagine the inside of a computer reduced down by 80%!) Anyway I was successful in my attempt at it. The theory behind all of this is that the normal IR filter placed in DSLRs by the factory are made for normal photography. With Astrophotography we are attempting to capture extremely faint lights and colors. The normal IR filter does a very (overly good) job of blocking reds. Many of the deep sky objects we are attempting to capture contain significant amounts of red. Hence that is the light the normal IR filter blocks. So a few after market manufactures have a modified IR filter you can use as a replacement. However this requires getting into the guts of the DSLR to change it. The end result is a lower exposure time and much brighter reds. Here's my result from last night. No color tweeks just normal processing. Keep in mind I was shooting this with a 1/2 moon very close to the target object so it wiped out some of the blue portions that I captured in the earlier image.


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