FILTERS!!

Seen as how i've been at the old astronomy now for two years or so (and progressing slowly!), I was thinking of investing in some filters for a change - deep sky filters like OIII, h-beta, etc. The whole subject baffles me though, so I was wondering if anyone out there had any advice on what would be a good, all-purpose deep sky filter for nebulae and the like.

Cheers!

José,

what imager, scope and mount are you using?

Are you using a guidescope and imager also?

My one and only scope at the moment is one of those Lidl bought LXD 75 6 inchers. It's a good scope in my opinion (by no means an expert opinion!) and the mount is solid. As to imagers, I have none! I was hoping a good filter would improve the visual aspect of things- Or am I wrong? : As I said, help!

Jose - I guess (but I could be wrong) that the narrowband filters are really only for imaging use (OIII, h-beta). My guess is since they pass so few photons, that you'd see nothing. But of course a sensitive CCD imaging for a fair amount a time would pick up them up.

For visual use, you can certainly get coloured filters that would improve the contrast of planetary features and of course, you can choose high contrst filters for the likes of naebulae. I used to have a Lumicon UHC filter and it was superb on M42. It was pricey though - I think about €100 second-hand.

Coloured filters are much cheaper but really won't do much for deep sky stuff.

Sorry for not bothering to try and track some web pages down for you - try Lumicon - they may have a good summary. I remember getting a Celestron document that listed the various Wratten colours and what planetary details they were good for. So Celestron's website may also be a good port of call.

When you're ready to buy, trawl the likes of Astromart. Filters rarely get abused and postage is cheap.

HTH

Dave

Hi,
I use a meade Oxygen filter for visual use, it certainly works well on nebula like M42, especially in light polluted skies. It makes for a great nebula filter, how big is your scope, as a smaller scope might have trouble with this filter.

I used to have an O-III filter with my 10" dob in the past, the views it gave of objects such as the the Ring Nebula and the Dumbbell were superb. When used on the Veil Nebula I was blown away by the sight.

Unfortunately it, like most broadband filters, only work on a small number of objects, with the O-III gaseous nebulae, it would be useless on clusters and galaxies.

If you are a member of an astronomy club perhaps one of the other members has one they could let you use.

Paul