Go Red: My Screen Filter for Astrophotography

My Simple Hack for Dark Sky Screen Glare

You know that feeling, right? You’re out under the stars, deep into an astrophotography session, and the glow from your computer screen just keeps nagging at you. These days, a laptop is pretty much indispensable for managing autoguiding or image capture, but that bright display can really mess with your night vision.

My first instinct, like many of you, was to crank the monitor brightness down to the absolute minimum. But let’s be real, it’s often still not enough. And while there are some neat software tools out there that can tint certain windows red (like Cartes du Ciel, for instance), none of them ever really hit the mark for me. You always end up with a few rogue windows staying glaringly white, completely blowing out your dark adaptation.

So, I decided to take matters into my own hands and build an “astro-specific” screen filter! My solution was super simple: I grabbed a piece of rigid cardboard, cut it precisely to the size of my screen, and then stapled a transparent red film over it. You know, the kind often used for covering school textbooks? The result? Absolutely sensational!