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Old 09-06-2013, 12:24 AM
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OzEclipse (Joe Cali)
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Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Young Hilltops LGA, Australia
Posts: 1,183
I agree with much of the review. I've used Baader 3.8 and 5.0 for more than 12 years. I tried some Seymour a year ago for the transit of Venus. For the extended viewing associated with that event, I had interchangeable Baader and Seymour filters on my ED80 and compared both.

I found Seymour more comfortable to use for extended periods of visual observing. Baader is a bit sharper and clearer but has an image that I have always found it a bit uncomfortably bright for extended viewing. The Baader has a tinge of purple colouration visually. Photographically it can easily be corrected out and changed to any colour you want. When I say too bright, I'm talking about comfort not safety. Images from Baader being neutral, can easily be coloured in Photoshop later for aesthetics and that same digital filtration can enhance granulation. You don't have to use colour filters at the telescope.

The Baader 5.0 is fine for photography. They sell the 3.8 as photo only film but in reality, it's density is designed to give high shutter speeds for high f ratio systems f25 -f50 or for the sun near the horizon with a faster f ratio eg a sunrise eclipse. The photo filter is unusable at fast f ratios.

Baader ND 5.0 requires about 1/125-1/1000 s at f8 ISO depending on the density you want in the final image.

You can get internal reflections off the Baader causing ghosts although this has never happened to me. The Seymour is very cheap when purchased off ebay. You can probably afford to have both depending how much solar observing you do.

I've attached a sample image taken with the Baader and a 430mm focal length William Optics 70mm refractor. If you have to just buy one, I'd probably go with the Baader but it depends what you do with it.

Good Luck

Joe
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