How "Dense" an ND filter ..... ?

[Gargoyle_Steve (Steve)]

Now that I've finally armed myself with a new laptop for observing nights, and since it's first real run will be at a public Star Party, I'm obviously going to be a good boy and buy some red and neutral density filter gel stuff.

Have found some places from previous IIS threads, etc, to purchase from - question is though, I plan on buying some sections of both red and ND sheets to have some for myself and extra's in case anyone else needs some at the camp, does anyone have recommendations on what shade of red I should buy (one dealer offers plenty of variations!) and whether to buy x1, x2, x3, etc ND sheeting? How dark is dark enough?

[Dennis]

Hi Steve

The ND stuff that I used was NDx3. I still had the “red night vision” mode of The Sky turned on and the NDx3 just toned down the light sufficiently not to get me ejected from the paddock.

However, the NDx3 does make it difficult to see fine detail such as in critical focusing if you are doing this by eye. For simple operations such as setting the exposure, browsing the file structure and e.g. creating a new folder I found that the NDx3 was okay.

But, if you are going to be reading charts, etc, then maybe NDx2 would be the way to go?

Some Notebooks also have the capability to dim the display, so maybe NDx2 and adjusting the display may be the best combo?

The only reason I used ND rather than Red is that some software had red text on a white background which was impossible to read through the Red filter.

Cheers

Dennis

[Gargoyle_Steve (Steve)]

Thanks for that feedback Dennis, that's exactly the kind of stuff I needed to know. As always, you are the epitome of a true gentleman!

I'll do some ordering in the next couple of days, but if anyone else has further experience or opinions to share please feel free to post here as well.