SVBONY filters, are they much good?

[Mokusatsu (Australia)]

I'm after a 2" hydrogen beta filter, mainly just for chasing Horsehead and maybe a few things other than that, but as everyone knows, HB is a bit specialised and the list of objects that enhance well with it is short.

So it's a little harder than with a UHC or OIII etc to justify spending big bucks on a premium quality 2" HB filter. Harder, but not impossible.

I've seen SVBONY on eBay and Amazon, a few reviews suggest they're decent, but I'm not sure how advanced the reviewers are and I'm not sure if when they say it is wonderful, they mean compared to unfiltered views or some other piece of crap filter they got cheaply.

Compared to Lumicon, Baader, Astronomik, and other well regarded filter brands, has anyone tried SVBONY?

Are they decent, just decent for the money, or at least somewhat comparable with the expensive brands?

I'm not against buying a premium HB filter, it's a one off purchase I'll never make again, but I'm happy to buy "almost as good, but much cheaper" for something relatively rarely used like HB.

[mura_gadi (Steve)]

Hello,

Quick look at stats on the filters, the Lumicon/Televue operate at 10nm and 12nm, the SVBony at 25nm. Seems like a bit of gap, I see the KSON range of HB filters operate closer to the Lumicon/Televue bandwidths, they might be worth a look at as well.

Filters are all about bandwidths so I'd suggest a search list of filters focusing on that.

[astro744]

25nm is almost as wide as the Lumicon UHC (26nm, used to be 24nm). The Lumicon H-Beta is 9nm. (Not even sure Lumicon has a h-beta anymore since being purchased by another firm).

Note the Horsehead requires dark skies first and then a large exit pupil (ideally 4-7mm). Once you have this a H-beta filter improves contrast further for the Horsehead to show. It is basically black on slightly less black. If you don’t meet the first two parameters then even a quality H-beta filter will struggle especially in suburban lighting.

I have seen the Horsehead in a 6” f5.5 Newtonian with Lumicon H-beta under very dark skies using 25mm Clave Plossl. I have not yet seen the Horsehead in suburban/city lighting.

[Mokusatsu (Australia)]

I checked, my Astronomik UHC is more narrowly filtering HB than this filter.

So I'll stick to the Astronomik and watch the classifieds for a decent 2" HB.