I replaced my Lpro (after 3 years) with the quad band last December. I love this filter!! What impresses me is the amount of Ha it shows...almost like it had been shot seperately and added in. Ive shot quite a few targets with it and love the results from my Bortle 9 backyard!!
Using these filters is almost like doing HARGB on the galaxies it’s really nice. As you can see from My no filter data from B2 almost no HA shows up and with just an hour in my B5 backyard I get plenty
Yeah no filter even in B5 does solid for me as you saw in my M45 that was only about 4-5h. I like how they bring more contrast and color in for galaxies, and for folks that are in B7-8 it’s tough to not use at least one of these.
That's been my recent experience too. I've been getting good results under Bortle 8 skies with just a UV/IR cut, but with tons of integration and only on moonless nights (of which there are never enough). Would love it if this Antlia filter or the new Optolong quad band competitor would give me more flexibility here. Thanks for this thorough analysis, Ryan!
I will definitely be purchasing an Antlia Quad Band Filter. The main reason is because the filter actually cuts part of the blue spectrum in which bright white cool kelvin leds are. That is a game changer. Screw the sodium orange and yellow lights at this point. Everything in Connecticut in my area is being replaced with STUPID WHITE BLINDING LED BULBS WITH ABSOLUTELY NO CONCERN FOR ANYTHING NIGHTTIME. THE BULBS LITERALLY SAY "DAYTIME" as a classification. I wish we would sanction those lights. Every car now has them too. I drive to and from work in the dark with sunglasses and that is asinine. Screw the national highway safely commission administration and the department of motor vehicles and all the bulbs made in that fashion. Clear skies?! They are killing clear and dark skies one bright white led bulb at a time.
At first, I thought LEDs were going to be better because they’re not that ugly yellow color, and just more of a pure white but they are even brighter than since they’re more energy, efficient and people don’t mind running them more! I definitely recommend the filter like any filters not perfect for every target but for one shot color it probably has the broadest use of any filter I’ve tried you can use it on narrow band fits targets and it does well all the way to Galaxy
So grateful to you for sacrificing a moonless night to share this comparison. I just got the Antlia Quadband but nothing but rain since. So, I'm enjoying the vicarious experience of your video in anticipation of seeing how it performs with my OSC pro full-frame camera.
Great video, thanks! Both the tri band and quad are awesome. But the true black on the quad band is really the biggest difference and makes it worth it.
Very true, I’ve since processed two more images in the last couple days since releasing the video and sometimes which one I like more is debatable based on the filter. But the one thing that’s always consistent is the background always seems to be more balanced with the quad. But going forward I’m making the switch. I’ll definitely keep the Triband around for a rainy day and because I have two color cameras though it still is a great filter no matter what
If I'm looking at the right filter, the Antlia quad band's 4th band is IR from 700 to about 1000nm. Anyone with an OSC with a UV/IR blocking filter would not benefit from this. Making it more like the tri band. And if your camera just has a clear window so the IR light goes through, you need an optical system that is well corrected in the IR to avoid bloating (such as a reflector). The Antlia is way different than the Optolong Quad filter, which has 4 bands within the visible range. It's more like an IDAS GNB. Very interesting review.
The quadband places its bandpasses in different places than the triband and results are much different as you can see if you watch all the way through.
My Antlia Quadband will be here tomorrow. My first filter! Can't wait to see how it does! That said, does anyone know if it's possible to get a more accurate SHO with OSC and this filter? Not sure exactly how the data would have to be split to isolate the sulfer.
Yeah, I felt like 20 minute rotations was pretty fair hard to claim a bias in that small amount of time. I was lucky to have really good skies, too. In terms of clouds no high-level issues or passing clouds. They really did get a fair comparison.
I've been using the Triband since February, in Bortle 3/4, and have been impressed with how it brings out the Ha, particularly in galaxies. I tried no filter last week for a sanity check, and immediately put the Triband back in. I'm thinking I want to try the Quadband now. Thanks.
Similar - I am Bortle 4 - 5 and shoor with a OSC I really like the results of my L-Extreme but it does not gather any SII. I was thinking about getting a filter which contributed that part - but now I am looking at a quad as a replacement. It will be interesting to see how others review/compare to this - this study was very time consuming and through. The Antlia Quadband Anti-Light Pollution Filter: H-alpha: 656.3nm S-II: 671.6nm, 672.4nm O-III: 495.9nm, 500.7nm NII: 658.3nm, 654.8nm The Optolong L-eXtreme Dual Bandpass Light Pollution Reduction 7nm passband centered on H-alpha at 656nm and a second 7nm passband centered on OIII near 501nm
@@allenbaylus3378 if you're looking to compliment your Extreme you're better off getting another narrowband filter than highlights Sii and Oiii or Hb. I wouldn't combine data with the narrowband filter with a broadband filter to get Sii. You want to combine the narrower bandpasses if you're going for that look. Check out the video I did after this on the Antlia set of duo narrowband filters.
The Antlia is a better filter and design than the Optilong so it wouldn’t be worth me going through the weeks of work (and clear nights sacrificed) that went into this video just to come to the same conclusion that the Quadband is the best broadband color filter. The L-Quad is too broad in its bandpasses and is actually pretty similar to the L-Pro I’m not sure why they designed it that way and not a bit more narrow like the Antlia and from my experience the overall quality of Antlia Filters is a bit better than Optolong so I would recommend the quadband hands down if you’re trying to decide. I own several of both brands and the Antlia for the money is better overall in my opinion especially when it comes to the narrowband stuff. I’m not affiliated with either brand and Agena sells both of them so it’s truly an unbiased opinion
Thanks for a detailed, thorough, no BS review. This was really interesting and valuable - and this from someone who swears to the L-Pro. You've made me put the quad-band into serious consideration. My wallet may not have liked this video, but I sure did.
Haha thanks I know that feeling at least it’s on sale at Agena right now $180-ish for what it is to me is a pretth solid price point. I think overall Antlia does bring a slightly higher quality as someone who enjoys both brands and does still think the L-Pro, and with it on sale it’s the cheapest quad option of the two and I think cheaper than the original L-Pro price so for us that aren’t new it’s an additional upgrade. But I wanted to get the word out for folks, deciding between a light pollution filter, and something like this to let them know to skip the light pollution, and just go for one of these!
Excellent video and data presentation. I have been considering which of these filters that I might like to buy. Now I know! My only production comment is to take a breath every-now-and-then; I was exhausted trying to keep up with your pace of conversation! Packed with information and data! Thanks!
Haha fair enough, I actually have to work really hard to keep the pace up. Slower paced videos don’t do well unfortunately, I can track by the second on YT and the more you pack into less the time the longer people stay on. One of the most consistent compliments I get is that my videos aren’t longer than necessary and pack a lot of information into a short amount of time I think you can change the playback speed to slow down? I know I usually listen to most videos at 1.25 or 1.5x so I’m sure it goes both ways
You are certainly right-on regarding all those points about UA-cam views! On my channel (Astrophotography Japan), I don't really pay much attention to it. I think that I basically make the videos my way, not necessarily to keenly promote popularity. Regardless, it does alright. Anyways, I really like your channel! Keep it up!
@@jpastroguy Thank you! I’ll subscribe to yours as well thanks! Now that I have been doing it this way for a while it’s natural but at first when I watched my takes I was a lot slower than it felt. I was like man I talk slow in real life.
They have a disclaimer for every halo they sell. I have not noticed any no. Their narrowband filters I believe have the same warning and mine perform amazing even on Alnitak.
I purchase this filter after your review, my first and only broadband filter. I'm using it with an ASI071MC which only has an AR window. My OTA is a C8 and I use it with a Celestron 6.3 focal reducer. My focal length is around 1280-1300mm. I have noticed halos around bright stars. When I choose a focus star I'm usually got a 1 to 5 sec exposure, gain 200. There is always a halo around the bright star. If I reduce the exposure the halo gets smaller and eventually not noticeable. I can live with this scenario. I did encounter a massive halo around Anlitak when I attempted to image Horsehead Nebula. Anlitak was on the left side of the frame and while the filter did a great job on the reds around the Horsehead, Anlitak had a severe irregular banded halo that invaded some of the nebulosity between Horsehead an Anlitak. Others have told me this is a difficult combination to image. I've used this filter for several galaxies, M81, M82, M106 and it seems fine. Maybe with less focal length, wider field of view, bright stars within nebulas, less gain or exposure but more integration the halos will not be a problem. I expect this to be an issue with Antlia main competitor also. Like normal photography you have to apply different strategies to imaging and post processing.
Yeah, there are a lot of factors in an imaging train with or without a filter most systems get the halo on Alnitak. When you start combining different cameras, focal, reducers and scopes it’s hard to predict what the outcome will be until you try it
This is great content, Ryan! I recently bought the QuadBand but have not used it yet due to incessant clouds.....and been trying to figure out if I solely wanted to try on traditional broadband targets like reflection neb/galaxies/traditional OSC targets - or what a result would be on a traditional narrowband/straight emission nebulae. As the bandpasses on the Quadband around the 3 main gasses look to be about 30nm range....so obviously pretty wide but also much narrower than the other "light pollution" filters that are even wider around R,G, and B rather than the gasses. Clearly there are much better dualband options for emission neb with much narrower bandpasses.....but, I do think I want to at least see what the Quad does on a traditional narrowband target/emission neb. As Antlia is certainly marketing it that it can shoot all these targets!!
It actually does pretty well on narrowband targets. I did the flaming star and tadpoles. I just didn’t have time to stack it. But I can tell by the individual subs it’s going to work well. I have an L-Ultimate filter I’ve done the exact same composition on and the quad does a better job showing the 03 in the tadpoles, but the stars are a lot bigger like a no filter image. So it’s great for the contrast on the nebula, but still leaves the stars pretty big, but if you want more of a Narrow band look, you can always just reduce them
@@darkrangersinc great to hear! I also want to try the Quadband as a luminance on mono cam! I do this on occasion with the Radian Triad Ultra....and for some targets it works great also as a Lum channel for mono shooting. (and would love to see your Orion HDR workflow, too, I will be sure to vote up! :)
It made it way past 50 now, so I’ll do it this weekend, and get it out. This one took a while. Antlia says you can use the Tri/Quad for an L filter I tested the Tri it worked out fine. Now that I have the quad I’m just leaving the Tri in the filter wheel for that purpose.
Love the channel great photos fantastic Ryan ,like how you go over the processing part ,and always tell how much integration time ,and from the bortle to ,thanks for all the information. Askar 120 please ,with field flattner ,it's the Apo in my price range at the moment, you could do the 140 to after it comes out, it's only 700 Canadian more than 120 ,on eq6r pro would be awsome ,but whatever mount you use is just fine THANKS FOR SHARING :)
I’ve got an askar 151 on the way. When it comes to the 120 or any of the orange scopes that they recently come out with I really don’t recommend them. It’s a lower quality segment of scopes that they are making they only have a single piece of ED glass. They don’t list what type of glass it is and the hardware is not the same caliber as their PHQ line. I would look at the 107PHQ it’s similar focal length but better quality
All these guys with these cool gadgets and awesome equipment. Makes my Celestine astromaster and cheap telescope camera with my Chromebook makes me depressed lol
It’s just about making progress from wherever you are that’s all that matters. Everyone has a different starting point as long as you’re moving in the right direction!
Great comparison. I wonder how the Optilong Quad band would stack up against the Quad of the Antlia? Little surprised you didn't mention the rather large halos around the bright stars when using the Quad though.
The Anltia filters seem to consistently outperform all the optolong filters I own. I don’t have any bias in the situation. Agena Astro sells both. The L-Quad has wider bandpasses and from looking at thier charts doesn’t seem different enough from the L-Pro to make a major difference. If they wanted to send one out, I would be happy to test it, but I just prefer the results I get with Antlia Filters and I already had the Triband so I wanted to see if I could get more of the purples and blues with the better placement of that particular bandpass and it definitely did what I was hoping for. You can see the difference on Orion with how much more natural the filter is obviously at this point we don’t have anything that perfectly replicates no filter dark sky conditions but it’s pretty close. From my experience, if the sky conditions are good, I don’t really have any issues with halos with the filter. a lot of times people blame a filter when it’s something else in their imaging train or just the sky conditions at night. I know that when you go to purchase them, they have the warning for all Antlia filters but with my 3 nm narrowband filters for example even with Alnitak I don’t get halos on 20 minute exposures.
@@darkrangersinc Thanks for the reply. Yeah I noticed the halos in your Orion picture and got me wondering if I want that. I'm sure there's work arounds though. I'll order it anyway. The colors outweigh the little extra work. If you have a link, I'll go through it so you get credit. Thanks gain for your quick reply.
This was an absolutely superb review Ryan and I for one appreciate you sacrificing the new moon 🌚 to do it! 😅 I’m in bortle 5 skies here as you know and have never owned any type of filter but I think the quad is going to be my first especially after upgrading to my first Astro cooled color camera (Zwo533MC pro). As for telescope reviews, I have an Askar 65PHQ which gives me 415mm focal length but I’d love to see a review on a scope around the 900-1050mm range if possible. I’d also love to see how you combined the short/long exposures on M42 to get that trapezium 👏👏👏🔭🌌 Cheers Si
It’s a great first filter or all around filter. If I only could have one, I used to say it would be the Triband. I still think that’s a great choice but now that the quad is out edges it out just a little bit in my mind.
Thanks for this awesome video. I am going to get the quadband one. One thing I noticed on the agena astro site that due to unpredictable haloing, they don't offer any refunds on antlia filters. How was your experience like with halos? I hope I don't get a lemon when I order from them (and I am going to use your affiliate link to place my order, just my way of saying thanks for this excellently produced video).
I have two sets of LRGBSHO, so 14 filters there, a quadband and a triband and I have not experienced any issues. Over 50 people have used the link in the video to purchase the filter and I have not gotten one email from anyone complaining about it. So it’s a pretty good sample size that would indicate they don’t. I think they’re just using that just in case any filter in the wrong imaging train can give you Hohs and I think they don’t want the filter to be blamed when it could not necessarily be the filters fault. If you put that same filter in a different imaging, it might work just fine.
Cześć! Yeah it should work fine just get the right filter size for your drawer. It shouldn’t cause any issues if the filter is large enough it won’t block your OAG I’m assuming you have a 2” filter drawer?
I have 2 questions: 1- did you use your 2600MC with the original protective glass (UV/IR)? 2- How did you install the filter wheel on the 2600MC? By screwing it in with the small screws? Did you have to remove the tilt adapter? Thanks!
Hey Ryan, your quad band link is broken. I've the L-eXtreme for a while now and have been intrigued by the triband but now I'll have to give that quad band a try. Thanks
I purposely bought the TriBand instead of the Quadband recent because it does not have IR. I think IR leads to fuzzier pictures since IR has a different focus point, and my IR-sensitive camera reallocates IR to RGB so you can actually see it in your image, giving unexpected results.
The 2600 and many of the newer color cameras all have UV/IR cut filter built in so I didn’t have star bloat any or any issues, my FWHM and Eccentricity scores were all about the same But if your camera is different than that, could make sense for your situation for sure! 👍🏼
@@darkrangersincInteresting! Yes, ASI585MC. But i've had this feeling the IR actually is a negative not a positive. Only up until recently it was thought IR makes signal worse, so that IR/UV cut filters were common. So if your camera is IR Cut, are the differences we're seeing in your video due to range differences in the non-IR section?
@@skye7690 yes the main difference is the non-IR that’s featured. It allows for transmission of the H-Beta and more of the blue/Violet region. The IR is pretty irrelevant in this testing as my camera would just block it anyways
@@skye7690 reading up on your camera. It looks like it’s more sensitive to the near IR signal so if you’re not looking for that you would want to have a filter that blocked it for sure. So the triband may be the better option if that’s your primary concern. Overall, I think the color is better with the Quad and more natural. But the Triband also does a nice job. I owned it for about a year now. You really can’t go wrong with either. It’s just a matter of which one fits your needs better.
Awesome content Ryan Optolong has also brought out their Quadband filter and from the initial tests I've seen the 2 might be very close, I would love to see if someone does a comparison between the optolong and Antlia versions
I’m sure they’re close I have a decent amount of both brands and I do feel as though Antlia has the edge. I had my choice on either to review and feel better recommending Antlia for its quality… having said that optolong still makes solid stuff I do like my L-Ultimate it’s the most Halo Free DNB filter I’ve seen
I only have experience editing data from the Askar as I did in that video but it was solid. The Hb is very close to O3 so I would check out the Antlia as well. I did a more traditional combination where I actually split the channels and posted it but it never got to 50 likes so I didn’t do a video on it. But I’ve used data from both sets now and both were good imo
Totally different use case. The Quadband is a broadband filter not narrowband. It’s a much better choice than the Triad in reflection nebula or galaxies , and the Triad would be much better at pin pointing emission nebula. You don’t want tight bandpasses for galaxies or reflection nebula it would block a ton of necessary good light. So you’d be flexing out the best results 😕💪🏼.
I was actually getting almost the same stars as my 3nm Mono filters usually I’m around 2.0-2.2 with mono I was 2.2-2.5 with the Quad, and 2.5-2.7 with no filter.
Excellent comparison You made me keep this filter Another video almost made me return it as he was showing that nothing makes the difference compared to no filter But you’re right that is all I’m looking is to have most natural and closed to no filter I have seen m42 all one red color and it is to much for me I like to see full difference on colors Thanks
I do compare vs no filter on M101 later in the episode. Also as I explain in the episode it eats up a lot of clear sky time to do these tests on data I ultimately won’t use for my own pursuits since I tend to average 15-20h per target and of course there’s no way I could do that with each filter. So I do enjoy helping the community but I also have to balance my own enjoyment of the hobby as this is not my “day job” or something I do for profit it’s simply a way to give back to community and is already EXTREMELY time consuming to set up these videos, test, edit, script, film, and put them all together. I’m also putting out content EVERY week. I know it may look easy to just add another layer of testing on top of three filters, but this was already a very thorough test to do and took a lot of time and effort. Hope you can appreciate and understand that.
Hello Ryan, I acquired the Asi585MC camera to be used as primary camera. Also based on your review I got the Antlia quad band filter in 2". I am new to astrophotography and am in Bortle 4-5 skies just north of Copenhagen, Denmark. I understand the Asi585MC does not have a ir/uv cut filter, meaning it should not conflict with the wave lengths the Antlia filter let through, i guess it is a question of transmission curves. However, as an example, if I want to get the Asi2600MC pro, it comes with an ir/uv cut filter, and so does a lot of other higher end cameras apparently. Does an ir/uv cut filter in combination with a quad band filter work, is it something to pay attention to ?
@@michaelkohl2250 only if you’re concerned with that bandpass, I still like the placement of the RGB band passes more than any other filter of its kind. I wasn’t really concerned with the NIR data. The real difference is the location of the other 3 bandpasses. I see this comment every so often and while there is a specific pass for that data it’s not really what makes this filter game changer in my opinion
@darkrangersinc What is the best way to stack and process a quad filter session? I shot the Rosette with it. Can I pull out the different channels when I stack?
The bandpasses are a little wide to so the whole narrowband pass processing style. I typically treat it like no filter data with OSC or the way I would process LRGB broadband data with Mono. So more of a broadband approach which is fairly simple. You can try to separate the channels but just be aware the bandpasses are 25nm so it’ll be a little different than using a 3-7nm filter
Hey, thanks for all your input and studies on the new quad band. I am curious are all these images include calibration frames as well or is that strictly just filter?
Antlia has said you can use this and the Triband for a Lum yes. I haven’t tried it as I have their LRGB set. But it should work fine. It gives you 25 nm at each band pass for RGB. If anything, it would be better for higher bortle class I would assume.
B5 and I know that for sure after my SQM video lol. It’s not amazing like 19.5 so not far from a B6. Moving in the not too distant future and will seek darker skies but for now a little light pollution is good for these tests!
It’s not local really it’s more so from cities that are an hour or so away the backyard is forest preserve for several miles. It’s more so just residual from farther away. There are some old school street lights in the neighborhood though so that would likely be mercury or sodium.
That’s honestly a great question and I’ve done both. As you saw from the video you get more nebula and color from the filter but you’ll block (some) good light as well but also some bad as there still is some LP even at B3-B4. Like I suggested in the video, you might want to do a split and use the filter to bring out some of the Ha and deeper colors and then go half with no filter and combine it to get the best of both worlds. The other way you could do it is if you’re just there temporarily shoot all filter free and then when you go back home, use the filter that way you can get as much signal at your dark sky site. And use the filter to its potential under more light polluted skies to add some color If you live in B3-4 then split it
Since it’s a broadband filter it should work fine the issue with more narrowband filters is the shift in the bandpass caused by high speed scopes. Antlia does make high speed versions of most of their Narrowband stuff but with the quad and Triband being so wide ~ 25nm it shouldn’t cause any issues even if there’s a slight shift there’s plenty of room left in the bandpass to let good light in.
they both have the same width bandpass in the color channels so there really wouldn't be one that's better for a certain bortle class over the other. They'll both eliminate LP equally well. It's just a matter of which one will give you the colors you want. I feel like the Triband does a better job showing Ha gas, but the Quadband appears to be a more natural Look imo.
It’s still a good filter, See if you can swap it if not I would still use it for certain situations it’ll help you go after targets in light polluted skies you can’t normally go after 💪🏼
Because it could drown out by the other signal. The filters, add contrast and isolate the red signal while blocking some of the other light that might drown it out
@@darkrangersinc Thanks for the reply. But since this was a broadband target, wouldn't solely going after Ha/O3 and the weaker SII and Hb, not necessarily be a good thing? I can understand this for an Ha or O3 target like California or Trifid, but for a bright galaxy, wouldn't we want to get the full spectrum from a dark location? This is what I am used to doing. Thanks again.
@@DBFIU it’s literally always better to go to a dark sky location that’s not the point. The point of a filter is to be able to image from less than ideal skies and block as much of the bad light as possible, while retaining as much of the good light as you can. Not everybody can get too dark skies routinely or ever. So this is a great way for them to be able to shoot broadband targets from more like polluted skies. Judging by how well the images came out with a very small amount of integration time, especially Orion. I would say that the filter has proved to be very valuable 💪🏼
It would not be the best option for that type of pallet. If you click on the link, it will take you to the antlia filters I would choose the ALP-T narrowband set or at least start with the Ha-O3
It’s basically just a better version because it’s the same bandpass size - but you get more bandpasses at valuable spots. So rather than just 2 you get 4. So more even color less good signal blocked. But still just as good at light pollution.
Hi Dark, i really like your videos, you make me want to use that filter with the new Seestar S50(with a 3d printed adapter) that i preordered. In my city, the polution level is 8-9 and i really like the effect it gives. I will crop it a bit then just try to apply auto stretch with pixingsight and then use background extraction - the interpolation IA from Graxpert (possible from pixingsight now). I am really curious if only these 2 fully automated manipulation will give a result good enough. Iam curious also how does the Antlia quandband compare to his new competitor : Optolong L-Quad Quadband Anti-Light Pollution Filter - 2" Mounted # L-QEF
Well, that’s up to you in terms of what you think is “good enough” I think you’ll be able to see and recognize the target you’re looking to showcase if you do background extraction and an auto stretch but I think you’ll be able to get quite a bit more if you process it further. The Optolong seems to have much wider than pass at least the two main ones that cover the 4 major gas emission lines. When you look at the chart on it, it’s pretty similar to the L pro. The Triband and quadband have much narrower 25 nm bandpasses. For your situation since you’re in a higher bortle class you’re going to want tighter bandpass filters to help block the light pollution.
the Radian triad is a narrowband filter and has a totally different purpose. This filter is made for broadband targets. The Antlia triband came out a year or so ago and this is the next adaptation of it and they both are newer in the same ball park as a LP filter but with narrower bandpasses. The number of bandpasses in this case isn’t as important as the size of them. This filter is aimed for a different purpose than the Radian. It’s also a $200 filter vs $1000 so it definitely wouldn’t be a fair comparison from a price standpoint.
@@darkrangersinc Thank you for the response and clarification. I was wondering how you got the reflection nebula with a quad-band (narrow-band) filter. I typically shoot reflection and galaxies with the l-pro, but it's not always the best without many hours of exposure. At $180 it appears to be a bargain. Does it matter if the camera is an IR cut versus AR protect? My 2600mc is IR and my 071mc pro is AR. Cheers!
@@z28rgr8 I’m using the 2600 so it also has an IR cut, I do believe the quad does lead in infrared. Where as the Triband does not. So it’s up there to you for the 071 if you’re ok letting IR in. It can bloat Stars a bit but I don’t have a problem when using my Mirrorless and no filter and it doesn’t have an IR cut filter so if it were me I would be ok with it
I don't understand the point in comparison at 15:15 . It seems like raw subs w/o color calibration are shown. Since your camera sensor has different quantum efficiencies at different wavelengths, you *have* to run spectrophotometric color calibration if you hope to have any resemblance of color to reality.
If you go to a dark sky site and use a color camera without filter, you’re getting very realistic and natural colors without the impede of any filtration or light pollution So if one filter resembles no filter more than another, you can trust that you’re getting a more natural color palette. The fact that the L-Pro gave a reddish galaxy shows very clearly that it creates a less realistic color spectrum. We know that stars appear very close to white when coming from a galaxy in most cases, and we know that M101 isn’t red. If you do SPCC on a no filter image from a dark skies site, it will do very little change, if any noticeable on the image itself. So if you can find a filter that replicates that look closer than another then you don’t have to rely as much on software manipulation to get a realistic image. You know that the filter is getting you at a closer starting point. SPCC wasn’t a thing several years ago people were getting great images of galaxies. You don’t need SPCC to get realistic images. You can simply go to a dark skies site and use a camera with no filter and you’ll get very realistic results. I think you might be overthinking this a bit. Showing an individual subframe as it appears on the camera, without any processing is a great way to showcase what the filter is actually doing.
Light polluted skies. Also if you saw the video it adds a lot of nice contrast and color to the galaxies and brings out the Ha Nebula in Andromeda whereas my data from B2 with no filter had very little color or Ha showing.
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dumb question - whats osc
@@camus83489not dumb- one shot color, basically what most people think of as a standard camera and a non-monochrome
I replaced my Lpro (after 3 years) with the quad band last December. I love this filter!! What impresses me is the amount of Ha it shows...almost like it had been shot seperately and added in. Ive shot quite a few targets with it and love the results from my Bortle 9 backyard!!
Using these filters is almost like doing HARGB on the galaxies it’s really nice. As you can see from My no filter data from B2 almost no HA shows up and with just an hour in my B5 backyard I get plenty
This looks like a must Adam
Thanks for all your hard work
Cheers Simon
Antlia Quadband works on the SeeStar S50.
Antlia Ha+OIII 5nm the S50 says that it can't find enough stars on the S50, but it was not a clear night.
Crazy amount of work put into this my man. Well done. For me tho, just a simple UV/IR cut is still my goto for broadband.
Yeah no filter even in B5 does solid for me as you saw in my M45 that was only about 4-5h. I like how they bring more contrast and color in for galaxies, and for folks that are in B7-8 it’s tough to not use at least one of these.
That's been my recent experience too. I've been getting good results under Bortle 8 skies with just a UV/IR cut, but with tons of integration and only on moonless nights (of which there are never enough). Would love it if this Antlia filter or the new Optolong quad band competitor would give me more flexibility here. Thanks for this thorough analysis, Ryan!
I will definitely be purchasing an Antlia Quad Band Filter. The main reason is because the filter actually cuts part of the blue spectrum in which bright white cool kelvin leds are. That is a game changer. Screw the sodium orange and yellow lights at this point. Everything in Connecticut in my area is being replaced with STUPID WHITE BLINDING LED BULBS WITH ABSOLUTELY NO CONCERN FOR ANYTHING NIGHTTIME. THE BULBS LITERALLY SAY "DAYTIME" as a classification. I wish we would sanction those lights. Every car now has them too. I drive to and from work in the dark with sunglasses and that is asinine. Screw the national highway safely commission administration and the department of motor vehicles and all the bulbs made in that fashion.
Clear skies?! They are killing clear and dark skies one bright white led bulb at a time.
At first, I thought LEDs were going to be better because they’re not that ugly yellow color, and just more of a pure white but they are even brighter than since they’re more energy, efficient and people don’t mind running them more!
I definitely recommend the filter like any filters not perfect for every target but for one shot color it probably has the broadest use of any filter I’ve tried you can use it on narrow band fits targets and it does well all the way to Galaxy
So grateful to you for sacrificing a moonless night to share this comparison. I just got the Antlia Quadband but nothing but rain since. So, I'm enjoying the vicarious experience of your video in anticipation of seeing how it performs with my OSC pro full-frame camera.
Appreciate it and I’m glad you ended up going with it. Once it clears up you’ll get some great results!
Thanks for your sacrifice! 🌑
I appreciate you ❤️. I’m literally swapping my monochrome camera back on as we speak!
Great video, thanks! Both the tri band and quad are awesome. But the true black on the quad band is really the biggest difference and makes it worth it.
Very true, I’ve since processed two more images in the last couple days since releasing the video and sometimes which one I like more is debatable based on the filter. But the one thing that’s always consistent is the background always seems to be more balanced with the quad.
But going forward I’m making the switch. I’ll definitely keep the Triband around for a rainy day and because I have two color cameras though it still is a great filter no matter what
If I'm looking at the right filter, the Antlia quad band's 4th band is IR from 700 to about 1000nm. Anyone with an OSC with a UV/IR blocking filter would not benefit from this. Making it more like the tri band. And if your camera just has a clear window so the IR light goes through, you need an optical system that is well corrected in the IR to avoid bloating (such as a reflector). The Antlia is way different than the Optolong Quad filter, which has 4 bands within the visible range. It's more like an IDAS GNB. Very interesting review.
The quadband places its bandpasses in different places than the triband and results are much different as you can see if you watch all the way through.
Very helpful in making a decision between the 2 and Quad band it will be !!!! Thank's, you got my subscription 😉👍
Awesome, thank you!
My Antlia Quadband will be here tomorrow. My first filter! Can't wait to see how it does!
That said, does anyone know if it's possible to get a more accurate SHO with OSC and this filter? Not sure exactly how the data would have to be split to isolate the sulfer.
This was a huge amount of work my friend!!! Congrats and thanks for the tests. You were very fair by rotating the filters as the night goes.
Yeah, I felt like 20 minute rotations was pretty fair hard to claim a bias in that small amount of time. I was lucky to have really good skies, too. In terms of clouds no high-level issues or passing clouds. They really did get a fair comparison.
@@darkrangersinc I bet your review about the quad is the first and super useful!!! Here again to thank you
I've been using the Triband since February, in Bortle 3/4, and have been impressed with how it brings out the Ha, particularly in galaxies. I tried no filter last week for a sanity check, and immediately put the Triband back in. I'm thinking I want to try the Quadband now. Thanks.
Yeah it’s the perfect amount of Ha where no filter gives almost none.
Similar - I am Bortle 4 - 5 and shoor with a OSC I really like the results of my L-Extreme but it does not gather any SII.
I was thinking about getting a filter which contributed that part - but now I am looking at a quad as a replacement.
It will be interesting to see how others review/compare to this - this study was very time consuming and through.
The Antlia Quadband Anti-Light Pollution Filter:
H-alpha: 656.3nm
S-II: 671.6nm, 672.4nm
O-III: 495.9nm, 500.7nm
NII: 658.3nm, 654.8nm
The Optolong L-eXtreme Dual Bandpass Light Pollution Reduction
7nm passband centered on H-alpha at 656nm and a second 7nm passband centered on OIII near 501nm
@@allenbaylus3378 if you're looking to compliment your Extreme you're better off getting another narrowband filter than highlights Sii and Oiii or Hb. I wouldn't combine data with the narrowband filter with a broadband filter to get Sii. You want to combine the narrower bandpasses if you're going for that look. Check out the video I did after this on the Antlia set of duo narrowband filters.
Ryan, Interested to see if you could compare the triband , Quadband and a heads on comparison to the optolong L-quad. thx.
The Antlia is a better filter and design than the Optilong so it wouldn’t be worth me going through the weeks of work (and clear nights sacrificed) that went into this video just to come to the same conclusion that the Quadband is the best broadband color filter. The L-Quad is too broad in its bandpasses and is actually pretty similar to the L-Pro I’m not sure why they designed it that way and not a bit more narrow like the Antlia and from my experience the overall quality of Antlia Filters is a bit better than Optolong so I would recommend the quadband hands down if you’re trying to decide. I own several of both brands and the Antlia for the money is better overall in my opinion especially when it comes to the narrowband stuff.
I’m not affiliated with either brand and Agena sells both of them so it’s truly an unbiased opinion
Thanks for a detailed, thorough, no BS review. This was really interesting and valuable - and this from someone who swears to the L-Pro.
You've made me put the quad-band into serious consideration. My wallet may not have liked this video, but I sure did.
Haha thanks I know that feeling at least it’s on sale at Agena right now $180-ish for what it is to me is a pretth solid price point. I think overall Antlia does bring a slightly higher quality as someone who enjoys both brands and does still think the L-Pro, and with it on sale it’s the cheapest quad option of the two and I think cheaper than the original L-Pro price so for us that aren’t new it’s an additional upgrade.
But I wanted to get the word out for folks, deciding between a light pollution filter, and something like this to let them know to skip the light pollution, and just go for one of these!
Thanks Ryan. I always appreciate filter reviews so I know what to look for and expect. I'm going to have to purchase another filter wheel pretty soon.
Yeah I may get a little 5x2 for my color camera as well. Especially if I get a second dual narrowband!
Excellent video and data presentation. I have been considering which of these filters that I might like to buy. Now I know! My only production comment is to take a breath every-now-and-then; I was exhausted trying to keep up with your pace of conversation! Packed with information and data! Thanks!
Haha fair enough, I actually have to work really hard to keep the pace up. Slower paced videos don’t do well unfortunately, I can track by the second on YT and the more you pack into less the time the longer people stay on.
One of the most consistent compliments I get is that my videos aren’t longer than necessary and pack a lot of information into a short amount of time I think you can change the playback speed to slow down? I know I usually listen to most videos at 1.25 or 1.5x so I’m sure it goes both ways
You are certainly right-on regarding all those points about UA-cam views! On my channel (Astrophotography Japan), I don't really pay much attention to it. I think that I basically make the videos my way, not necessarily to keenly promote popularity. Regardless, it does alright. Anyways, I really like your channel! Keep it up!
@@jpastroguy Thank you! I’ll subscribe to yours as well thanks! Now that I have been doing it this way for a while it’s natural but at first when I watched my takes I was a lot slower than it felt. I was like man I talk slow in real life.
Liked and subscribed, bril vid thanks for your sacrifice! Unfortunately i cant purchase from your link as im in uk but still clicked on it .
Glad to have you as a part of the community and Appreciate you trying!
Did you notice any haloing from the Antlia quadband? On Agena Astro's page, they add a disclaimer about haloing from the Antlia quadband.......
They have a disclaimer for every halo they sell. I have not noticed any no. Their narrowband filters I believe have the same warning and mine perform amazing even on Alnitak.
Awesome video Ryan. Now I know exactly which filter to get. Thank you!!!
I purchase this filter after your review, my first and only broadband filter. I'm using it with an ASI071MC which only has an AR window. My OTA is a C8 and I use it with a Celestron 6.3 focal reducer. My focal length is around 1280-1300mm. I have noticed halos around bright stars. When I choose a focus star I'm usually got a 1 to 5 sec exposure, gain 200. There is always a halo around the bright star. If I reduce the exposure the halo gets smaller and eventually not noticeable. I can live with this scenario. I did encounter a massive halo around Anlitak when I attempted to image Horsehead Nebula. Anlitak was on the left side of the frame and while the filter did a great job on the reds around the Horsehead, Anlitak had a severe irregular banded halo that invaded some of the nebulosity between Horsehead an Anlitak. Others have told me this is a difficult combination to image. I've used this filter for several galaxies, M81, M82, M106 and it seems fine. Maybe with less focal length, wider field of view, bright stars within nebulas, less gain or exposure but more integration the halos will not be a problem. I expect this to be an issue with Antlia main competitor also. Like normal photography you have to apply different strategies to imaging and post processing.
Yeah, there are a lot of factors in an imaging train with or without a filter most systems get the halo on Alnitak. When you start combining different cameras, focal, reducers and scopes it’s hard to predict what the outcome will be until you try it
This is great content, Ryan! I recently bought the QuadBand but have not used it yet due to incessant clouds.....and been trying to figure out if I solely wanted to try on traditional broadband targets like reflection neb/galaxies/traditional OSC targets - or what a result would be on a traditional narrowband/straight emission nebulae. As the bandpasses on the Quadband around the 3 main gasses look to be about 30nm range....so obviously pretty wide but also much narrower than the other "light pollution" filters that are even wider around R,G, and B rather than the gasses. Clearly there are much better dualband options for emission neb with much narrower bandpasses.....but, I do think I want to at least see what the Quad does on a traditional narrowband target/emission neb. As Antlia is certainly marketing it that it can shoot all these targets!!
It actually does pretty well on narrowband targets. I did the flaming star and tadpoles. I just didn’t have time to stack it.
But I can tell by the individual subs it’s going to work well. I have an L-Ultimate filter I’ve done the exact same composition on and the quad does a better job showing the 03 in the tadpoles, but the stars are a lot bigger like a no filter image.
So it’s great for the contrast on the nebula, but still leaves the stars pretty big, but if you want more of a Narrow band look, you can always just reduce them
@@darkrangersinc great to hear! I also want to try the Quadband as a luminance on mono cam! I do this on occasion with the Radian Triad Ultra....and for some targets it works great also as a Lum channel for mono shooting. (and would love to see your Orion HDR workflow, too, I will be sure to vote up! :)
It made it way past 50 now, so I’ll do it this weekend, and get it out. This one took a while. Antlia says you can use the Tri/Quad for an L filter I tested the Tri it worked out fine.
Now that I have the quad I’m just leaving the Tri in the filter wheel for that purpose.
Another great helpful video. Was on the fence between the quad and tri band. I primarily use a 2600 osc,but thats settled
Yeah, especially with it being on sale there’s only a $13 difference now.
Love the channel great photos fantastic Ryan ,like how you go over the processing part ,and always tell how much integration time ,and from the bortle to ,thanks for all the information.
Askar 120 please ,with field flattner ,it's the Apo in my price range at the moment, you could do the 140 to after it comes out, it's only 700 Canadian more than 120 ,on eq6r pro would be awsome ,but whatever mount you use is just fine
THANKS FOR SHARING :)
I’ve got an askar 151 on the way. When it comes to the 120 or any of the orange scopes that they recently come out with I really don’t recommend them. It’s a lower quality segment of scopes that they are making they only have a single piece of ED glass. They don’t list what type of glass it is and the hardware is not the same caliber as their PHQ line. I would look at the 107PHQ it’s similar focal length but better quality
All these guys with these cool gadgets and awesome equipment. Makes my Celestine astromaster and cheap telescope camera with my Chromebook makes me depressed lol
It’s just about making progress from wherever you are that’s all that matters. Everyone has a different starting point as long as you’re moving in the right direction!
Great video, Ryan!
Great comparison. I wonder how the Optilong Quad band would stack up against the Quad of the Antlia? Little surprised you didn't mention the rather large halos around the bright stars when using the Quad though.
The Anltia filters seem to consistently outperform all the optolong filters I own. I don’t have any bias in the situation. Agena Astro sells both. The L-Quad has wider bandpasses and from looking at thier charts doesn’t seem different enough from the L-Pro to make a major difference. If they wanted to send one out, I would be happy to test it, but I just prefer the results I get with Antlia Filters and I already had the Triband so I wanted to see if I could get more of the purples and blues with the better placement of that particular bandpass and it definitely did what I was hoping for. You can see the difference on Orion with how much more natural the filter is obviously at this point we don’t have anything that perfectly replicates no filter dark sky conditions but it’s pretty close.
From my experience, if the sky conditions are good, I don’t really have any issues with halos with the filter. a lot of times people blame a filter when it’s something else in their imaging train or just the sky conditions at night.
I know that when you go to purchase them, they have the warning for all Antlia filters but with my 3 nm narrowband filters for example even with Alnitak I don’t get halos on 20 minute exposures.
@@darkrangersinc Thanks for the reply. Yeah I noticed the halos in your Orion picture and got me wondering if I want that. I'm sure there's work arounds though. I'll order it anyway. The colors outweigh the little extra work. If you have a link, I'll go through it so you get credit. Thanks gain for your quick reply.
This was an absolutely superb review Ryan and I for one appreciate you sacrificing the new moon 🌚 to do it! 😅
I’m in bortle 5 skies here as you know and have never owned any type of filter but I think the quad is going to be my first especially after upgrading to my first Astro cooled color camera (Zwo533MC pro).
As for telescope reviews, I have an Askar 65PHQ which gives me 415mm focal length but I’d love to see a review on a scope around the 900-1050mm range if possible.
I’d also love to see how you combined the short/long exposures on M42 to get that trapezium 👏👏👏🔭🌌
Cheers
Si
It’s a great first filter or all around filter. If I only could have one, I used to say it would be the Triband. I still think that’s a great choice but now that the quad is out edges it out just a little bit in my mind.
Thanks for this awesome video. I am going to get the quadband one. One thing I noticed on the agena astro site that due to unpredictable haloing, they don't offer any refunds on antlia filters. How was your experience like with halos? I hope I don't get a lemon when I order from them (and I am going to use your affiliate link to place my order, just my way of saying thanks for this excellently produced video).
I have two sets of LRGBSHO, so 14 filters there, a quadband and a triband and I have not experienced any issues. Over 50 people have used the link in the video to purchase the filter and I have not gotten one email from anyone complaining about it. So it’s a pretty good sample size that would indicate they don’t.
I think they’re just using that just in case any filter in the wrong imaging train can give you Hohs and I think they don’t want the filter to be blamed when it could not necessarily be the filters fault. If you put that same filter in a different imaging, it might work just fine.
Great Video ! My setup is RC8 + 294 MC Pro with OAG L and filter drawer, you think that filter will fit with my setup? Greetings from Poland.
Cześć! Yeah it should work fine just get the right filter size for your drawer. It shouldn’t cause any issues if the filter is large enough it won’t block your OAG I’m assuming you have a 2” filter drawer?
Cześć :D yes I have 2" filter drawer. Thank you for your help @@darkrangersinc
What about Bortle 4 sky this filter still be usable? @@darkrangersinc
Coming back to this video...is the Quad band going to be suitable for dark nebulae from a bortle 7-8? Dark nebulae are my favorite thing right now
I have 2 questions: 1- did you use your 2600MC with the original protective glass (UV/IR)?
2- How did you install the filter wheel on the 2600MC? By screwing it in with the small screws? Did you have to remove the tilt adapter? Thanks!
Thanks
Hey Ryan, your quad band link is broken. I've the L-eXtreme for a while now and have been intrigued by the triband but now I'll have to give that quad band a try. Thanks
Ok let me see what’s up I’ll fix it
It was just missing the H at the beginning try again. It should work now. Thanks for letting me know!!
Thanks for sharing. 👍🏻
Thanks for watching!
Really helpful, thank you!
Maybe I missed it but what telescope was used? Because many of these filters do not work well with high speed imaging set-ups.
I purposely bought the TriBand instead of the Quadband recent because it does not have IR. I think IR leads to fuzzier pictures since IR has a different focus point, and my IR-sensitive camera reallocates IR to RGB so you can actually see it in your image, giving unexpected results.
The 2600 and many of the newer color cameras all have UV/IR cut filter built in so I didn’t have star bloat any or any issues, my FWHM and Eccentricity scores were all about the same
But if your camera is different than that, could make sense for your situation for sure! 👍🏼
@@darkrangersincInteresting! Yes, ASI585MC. But i've had this feeling the IR actually is a negative not a positive. Only up until recently it was thought IR makes signal worse, so that IR/UV cut filters were common. So if your camera is IR Cut, are the differences we're seeing in your video due to range differences in the non-IR section?
@@skye7690 yes the main difference is the non-IR that’s featured. It allows for transmission of the H-Beta and more of the blue/Violet region. The IR is pretty irrelevant in this testing as my camera would just block it anyways
@@skye7690 reading up on your camera. It looks like it’s more sensitive to the near IR signal so if you’re not looking for that you would want to have a filter that blocked it for sure. So the triband may be the better option if that’s your primary concern. Overall, I think the color is better with the Quad and more natural. But the Triband also does a nice job. I owned it for about a year now.
You really can’t go wrong with either. It’s just a matter of which one fits your needs better.
@@darkrangersincReally a fascinating topic, and yours in one the very first videos on comparing the Triband and Quadband. Thanks!!
Awesome content Ryan Optolong has also brought out their Quadband filter and from the initial tests I've seen the 2 might be very close, I would love to see if someone does a comparison between the optolong and Antlia versions
I’m sure they’re close I have a decent amount of both brands and I do feel as though Antlia has the edge. I had my choice on either to review and feel better recommending Antlia for its quality… having said that optolong still makes solid stuff I do like my L-Ultimate it’s the most Halo Free DNB filter I’ve seen
@@darkrangersinc yep I'm hanging out to see someone do a comparo then decide, I love my L-Ultimate but still want to purchase the Askar s2 O3 filter.
I only have experience editing data from the Askar as I did in that video but it was solid. The Hb is very close to O3 so I would check out the Antlia as well. I did a more traditional combination where I actually split the channels and posted it but it never got to 50 likes so I didn’t do a video on it.
But I’ve used data from both sets now and both were good imo
Just got my Antila quad filter.
Awesome hope you enjoy it still my favorite all around filter for OSC!
@@darkrangersinc I'm a newbie so I'm still trying to figure out my asiair plus!
Flexes in the much superior Triad Quad Narrowband filter.
Totally different use case. The Quadband is a broadband filter not narrowband. It’s a much better choice than the Triad in reflection nebula or galaxies , and the Triad would be much better at pin pointing emission nebula.
You don’t want tight bandpasses for galaxies or reflection nebula it would block a ton of necessary good light.
So you’d be flexing out the best results 😕💪🏼.
Looks like NIR band didn't make the stars bloated. That's great.
I was actually getting almost the same stars as my 3nm Mono filters usually I’m around 2.0-2.2 with mono I was 2.2-2.5 with the Quad, and 2.5-2.7 with no filter.
Excellent comparison
You made me keep this filter
Another video almost made me return it as he was showing that nothing makes the difference compared to no filter
But you’re right that is all I’m looking is to have most natural and closed to no filter
I have seen m42 all one red color and it is to much for me
I like to see full difference on colors
Thanks
Glad it helps. I do you think it’s a great all-around filter and as close as I’ve seen to getting the “no filter look” with a filter.
Cool video, but why didn't you use no filter when you took these shots too?
I do compare vs no filter on M101 later in the episode. Also as I explain in the episode it eats up a lot of clear sky time to do these tests on data I ultimately won’t use for my own pursuits since I tend to average 15-20h per target and of course there’s no way I could do that with each filter. So I do enjoy helping the community but I also have to balance my own enjoyment of the hobby as this is not my “day job” or something I do for profit it’s simply a way to give back to community and is already EXTREMELY time consuming to set up these videos, test, edit, script, film, and put them all together.
I’m also putting out content EVERY week. I know it may look easy to just add another layer of testing on top of three filters, but this was already a very thorough test to do and took a lot of time and effort. Hope you can appreciate and understand that.
Really great video! Where is your backyard on the Bortle scale?
5
Hello Ryan, I acquired the Asi585MC camera to be used as primary camera. Also based on your review I got the Antlia quad band filter in 2". I am new to astrophotography and am in Bortle 4-5 skies just north of Copenhagen, Denmark. I understand the Asi585MC does not have a ir/uv cut filter, meaning it should not conflict with the wave lengths the Antlia filter let through, i guess it is a question of transmission curves. However, as an example, if I want to get the Asi2600MC pro, it comes with an ir/uv cut filter, and so does a lot of other higher end cameras apparently. Does an ir/uv cut filter in combination with a quad band filter work, is it something to pay attention to ?
The quadband needs a camera without a uv/ir cut
@@michaelkohl2250 only if you’re concerned with that bandpass, I still like the placement of the RGB band passes more than any other filter of its kind. I wasn’t really concerned with the NIR data. The real difference is the location of the other 3 bandpasses. I see this comment every so often and while there is a specific pass for that data it’s not really what makes this filter game changer in my opinion
Great work! What Bortle is your backward?
B5
@darkrangersinc What is the best way to stack and process a quad filter session? I shot the Rosette with it. Can I pull out the different channels when I stack?
The bandpasses are a little wide to so the whole narrowband pass processing style. I typically treat it like no filter data with OSC or the way I would process LRGB broadband data with Mono. So more of a broadband approach which is fairly simple. You can try to separate the channels but just be aware the bandpasses are 25nm so it’ll be a little different than using a 3-7nm filter
I don’t understand how these work when the focus points are all so different for each band
What do you mean by different focus for each band?
Grazieeee!!! 👏👏👏
Hey, thanks for all your input and studies on the new quad band. I am curious are all these images include calibration frames as well or is that strictly just filter?
Yes
Nice video
Do you know if is good for mono camera for lum and from bortle 8-9
Thank you
Antlia has said you can use this and the Triband for a Lum yes. I haven’t tried it as I have their LRGB set. But it should work fine. It gives you 25 nm at each band pass for RGB. If anything, it would be better for higher bortle class I would assume.
I may have missed it in the video, but what Bortle class are you shooting from? Thanks
B5 and I know that for sure after my SQM video lol. It’s not amazing like 19.5 so not far from a B6. Moving in the not too distant future and will seek darker skies but for now a little light pollution is good for these tests!
What type of outdoor lighting do you have in your backyard? Mercury, sodium or LED lamps?
It’s not local really it’s more so from cities that are an hour or so away the backyard is forest preserve for several miles. It’s more so just residual from farther away. There are some old school street lights in the neighborhood though so that would likely be mercury or sodium.
Thank you so much!!!
One simple question:
Under Bortle 3-4, would you shoot Galaxies with the quadband, or without?!
That’s honestly a great question and I’ve done both. As you saw from the video you get more nebula and color from the filter but you’ll block (some) good light as well but also some bad as there still is some LP even at B3-B4.
Like I suggested in the video, you might want to do a split and use the filter to bring out some of the Ha and deeper colors and then go half with no filter and combine it to get the best of both worlds.
The other way you could do it is if you’re just there temporarily shoot all filter free and then when you go back home, use the filter that way you can get as much signal at your dark sky site. And use the filter to its potential under more light polluted skies to add some color
If you live in B3-4 then split it
Would You recommend quadband for rasa8 and asi533mc? If not which one would you recommend? Triband ?Idas NBZ? Thanks
Since it’s a broadband filter it should work fine the issue with more narrowband filters is the shift in the bandpass caused by high speed scopes. Antlia does make high speed versions of most of their Narrowband stuff but with the quad and Triband being so wide ~ 25nm it shouldn’t cause any issues even if there’s a slight shift there’s plenty of room left in the bandpass to let good light in.
I love in a bortle 4 almost a 5 area. Do you recommend the tri-band then?
they both have the same width bandpass in the color channels so there really wouldn't be one that's better for a certain bortle class over the other. They'll both eliminate LP equally well. It's just a matter of which one will give you the colors you want. I feel like the Triband does a better job showing Ha gas, but the Quadband appears to be a more natural Look imo.
My Lpro arrived today 😢
It’s still a good filter, See if you can swap it if not I would still use it for certain situations it’ll help you go after targets in light polluted skies you can’t normally go after 💪🏼
Hi! Question. Why don't we see Ha data with no filter? Wouldn't you be letting all light thru including Ha with no filter?
Because it could drown out by the other signal. The filters, add contrast and isolate the red signal while blocking some of the other light that might drown it out
@@darkrangersinc Thanks for the reply. But since this was a broadband target, wouldn't solely going after Ha/O3 and the weaker SII and Hb, not necessarily be a good thing? I can understand this for an Ha or O3 target like California or Trifid, but for a bright galaxy, wouldn't we want to get the full spectrum from a dark location? This is what I am used to doing. Thanks again.
@@DBFIU it’s literally always better to go to a dark sky location that’s not the point. The point of a filter is to be able to image from less than ideal skies and block as much of the bad light as possible, while retaining as much of the good light as you can. Not everybody can get too dark skies routinely or ever. So this is a great way for them to be able to shoot broadband targets from more like polluted skies.
Judging by how well the images came out with a very small amount of integration time, especially Orion. I would say that the filter has proved to be very valuable 💪🏼
Does this quad band Antila filter work well to make Hubble pallet?
It would not be the best option for that type of pallet. If you click on the link, it will take you to the antlia filters I would choose the ALP-T narrowband set or at least start with the Ha-O3
What is the disclaimer on AgenaAstro about halos around bright stars?
They just say it’s possible to have them, but they’re not doing anything another company isn’t as far as I know.
Hi. Nice review. How do you think would the quad perform against the l-enhance for asi 294mc?
It’s basically just a better version because it’s the same bandpass size - but you get more bandpasses at valuable spots. So rather than just 2 you get 4. So more even color less good signal blocked. But still just as good at light pollution.
I don't think you ever told us why telescope you used to get this data. F-ratio, aperture, etc?
The info is definitely in there. I always included on something like this as it’s important but the scope is a 90 mm at F4.8
Thanks for that.
What bortle zone is your backyard?
I’m in bortle 7/8 and am wondering if my results with the filter can be compared to your.
Thanks.
@@j.s.3407 absolutely, and B5 it should be fine for 7/8. It says good for B8 on their specs
Hi Dark, i really like your videos, you make me want to use that filter with the new Seestar S50(with a 3d printed adapter) that i preordered. In my city, the polution level is 8-9 and i really like the effect it gives.
I will crop it a bit then just try to apply auto stretch with pixingsight and then use background extraction - the interpolation IA from Graxpert (possible from pixingsight now). I
am really curious if only these 2 fully automated manipulation will give a result good enough.
Iam curious also how does the Antlia quandband compare to his new competitor :
Optolong L-Quad Quadband Anti-Light Pollution Filter - 2" Mounted # L-QEF
Well, that’s up to you in terms of what you think is “good enough” I think you’ll be able to see and recognize the target you’re looking to showcase if you do background extraction and an auto stretch but I think you’ll be able to get quite a bit more if you process it further.
The Optolong seems to have much wider than pass at least the two main ones that cover the 4 major gas emission lines. When you look at the chart on it, it’s pretty similar to the L pro. The Triband and quadband have much narrower 25 nm bandpasses.
For your situation since you’re in a higher bortle class you’re going to want tighter bandpass filters to help block the light pollution.
@@darkrangersinc Thank you Dark! i appreciate your advise
Would it not make more sense to compare it to the Radian Ultra Quad-band filter?
the Radian triad is a narrowband filter and has a totally different purpose. This filter is made for broadband targets. The Antlia triband came out a year or so ago and this is the next adaptation of it and they both are newer in the same ball park as a LP filter but with narrower bandpasses.
The number of bandpasses in this case isn’t as important as the size of them. This filter is aimed for a different purpose than the Radian. It’s also a $200 filter vs $1000 so it definitely wouldn’t be a fair comparison from a price standpoint.
@@darkrangersinc Thank you for the response and clarification. I was wondering how you got the reflection nebula with a quad-band (narrow-band) filter. I typically shoot reflection and galaxies with the l-pro, but it's not always the best without many hours of exposure. At $180 it appears to be a bargain. Does it matter if the camera is an IR cut versus AR protect? My 2600mc is IR and my 071mc pro is AR. Cheers!
@@z28rgr8 I’m using the 2600 so it also has an IR cut, I do believe the quad does lead in infrared. Where as the Triband does not. So it’s up there to you for the 071 if you’re ok letting IR in. It can bloat Stars a bit but I don’t have a problem when using my Mirrorless and no filter and it doesn’t have an IR cut filter so if it were me I would be ok with it
@@darkrangersinc Thanks again. Quadband is on the way. I intend to use it on the 071mc with an RC8. Will let you know. Cheers!
I don't understand the point in comparison at 15:15 . It seems like raw subs w/o color calibration are shown. Since your camera sensor has different quantum efficiencies at different wavelengths, you *have* to run spectrophotometric color calibration if you hope to have any resemblance of color to reality.
If you go to a dark sky site and use a color camera without filter, you’re getting very realistic and natural colors without the impede of any filtration or light pollution
So if one filter resembles no filter more than another, you can trust that you’re getting a more natural color palette. The fact that the L-Pro gave a reddish galaxy shows very clearly that it creates a less realistic color spectrum.
We know that stars appear very close to white when coming from a galaxy in most cases, and we know that M101 isn’t red.
If you do SPCC on a no filter image from a dark skies site, it will do very little change, if any noticeable on the image itself. So if you can find a filter that replicates that look closer than another then you don’t have to rely as much on software manipulation to get a realistic image. You know that the filter is getting you at a closer starting point.
SPCC wasn’t a thing several years ago people were getting great images of galaxies. You don’t need SPCC to get realistic images. You can simply go to a dark skies site and use a camera with no filter and you’ll get very realistic results.
I think you might be overthinking this a bit. Showing an individual subframe as it appears on the camera, without any processing is a great way to showcase what the filter is actually doing.
Why would you use filters on reflection or galaxies...
Light polluted skies. Also if you saw the video it adds a lot of nice contrast and color to the galaxies and brings out the Ha Nebula in Andromeda whereas my data from B2 with no filter had very little color or Ha showing.
Only problem for me is that awful halos over bright stars.... if that would not be that visible, i would buy instantly :)
These filters done halo bad at all if any
Mauve? Really!
??