What Filters do you consider Essential??

[Xeelee]

What filters do you consider essential to your viewing/astrophotography setup?

:D

[h0ughy]

sorry to be flippant but ones that work for what you want to use it for. there are heaps out there, go to the search function up the top right and type in filter review and then find it.

[janoskiss]

None are essential. Have a look at images people post; no filters are used more often than not. Most visual astronomy is also done without filters.

[Starkler]

I dont consider any to be essential and very few types to give any significant benefit in visual observing.

Colour filters, neutral density etc, you can keep them all as I dont get any benefit from them. The only one that I use occasionally is a uhc nebula filter.

[asimov]

The UHC neb filter gives me better views on some deep space objects than without it. An essential accessory? IMO nope.

[Striker]

The Baader UHC-s filter has proven to be a big winner with me In Brisbane on a DSLR.

[rmcpb]

Variable polarising for the lunar observing. All the others are just little extras that cannot be considered essential.

[vespine]

Lumicon Deep Sky (1.25") $175.00
https://www.bintelshop.com.au/Product.aspx?ID=6666

Astronomik CLS (1.25") $130.00
https://www.bintelshop.com.au/Product.aspx?ID=6534

Astronomik UHC (1.25") $190.00
https://www.bintelshop.com.au/Product.aspx?ID=6536

Meade #908B Broad Band Nebular (1.25") $155.00
https://www.bintelshop.com.au/Product.aspx?ID=5310

Lumicon Ultra High Contrast (1.25") $199.00
https://www.bintelshop.com.au/Product.aspx?ID=5294

Anyone have an opinion on any of these, in particular for visual observation use in light polluted skies?

[janoskiss]

The UHCs are useful for nebulae, but the DGM NBP will probably do at least as well as these, and cost significantly less. The broadband ones are supposed to be less effective in general, but I never tried one. There is a review of a whole bunch of different specialised (i.e., not simple coloured) filters in the August 2005 issue of Astronomy. (Libraries in the larger universities, e.g. Melbourne, Monash, will have a subscription.)

[dhumpie]

I can for one vouch for DGM Optics NPB (narrow pass band) filter. I got contrastier views of nebulae with this that my old Lumicon UHC (which I subsequently sold to someone else). Don't get me wrong the Lumicon was a great filter, but the DGM was just a tad contrastier! And their semi broadband (leans closer to narrowband) VHT (very high throughput) is also very very good.

Darren

[Hammerman]

I agree, but I also use the variable polarizing filter for planetary observing on Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. It's nice to be able to cut down the brightness a bit to help bring out detail in it's natural color.

[mickoking]

I find an OIII filter really enhances the views of many emission and planetery nebulae. Viewing the eta carinae and tarantula neb's with one of these filters is nothing short of spectacular.

I hope this helps :)

[Miaplacidus]

DGM Optics got a good rap for their nebula filter (NPB) from "Astronomy" magazine a few months ago. I got one and it is great, and I've compared it to some others (which were more expensive) and it equals or betters all of them.

http://users.erols.com/dgmoptics/

Still, I agree with the general comments that no filter is really essential.

Happy hunting!

[astro_south]

Xeelee

I have a Lumicon UHC and an Astronomics OIII filter and I find these very useful for varying the view of certain objects. Like others, I wouldn't say they are "essential", but very useful. Next time your at Ron's you could ask around - I'm sure someone up there will have some of these filters, otherwise you if you can wait a few months before I make it up there I can show you the advantage of them and you can decide how essential they are.

[Starkler]

Here (http://home.freeuk.com/m.gavin/grism2.htm) is a page showing spectragraphic tests of a few filters on the market.

A few things to note:

The thousand oaks oIII chops off one of the two oIII emission lines
The Astronomiks and Televue oIII are wider than the competition and approaching a UHC type bandwidth.