NEBULA FILTERS for TELESCOPES
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- In this video I am going to explain all about nebula filters for a telescope. I will explain first what nebulae are so you can understand how a nebula filter works. Then I will explain the difference between the various nebula filters. Next I will show you the results of some testing I did of various nebula filters of various brands on various nebulae and show you how well each one performed on the nebulae I looked at in two different telescopes. Finally, I conclude by explaining my reasoning for recommending that if you purchase a nebula filter that you should first get a UHC filter for your telescope. Keep in mind that some of these nebulae are very faint and that another extremely important factor to seeing them is to go to a dark sky site. Dark skies are vital to seeing nebulae.
So cool you are sharing such in-depth information for free. Stringing all your videos together would make for a great Astronomy course. I’m going to pick up an UHC filter. 👍
Thank you, Elray!
Thank you for this video, I'm a beginner astronomer and it allowed me to have a better understanding of this topic
Thank you. I'm glad you found it useful. Thanks for watching.
Hi Tsula! I recently got a baader high contrast filter and love it for smaller aperture scopes. It's got a more light transmission than others. Clear skys forever!!!!
It's called a baader contrast booster and you can use it for planets too!
Hi Eric: I've never used one of those. Thanks and clear skies to you also!
Those are in the Neodymium family of filters, which work as RGB intensifiers, the contrast booster adds a yellow tint to help correct for chromatic abberations in achromatic refractors, but happens to be a magic mars filter on any scope.
The plain neodymium filter is a better choice for apos and cats/reflectors for general use. They do darken the background a tad so they have a subtle effect on DSOs, but where they really shine is on planets, especially Jupiter.
There was a trick where you could stack an ndym and a fringe killer, and it would treat chromatic abberations with less of a yellow tint than a fringe killer or contrast booster. This is what inspired baader to come out with the more expensive "semi apo" filter which is basically the same as stacking the fringe killer and the ndym
I see that cheaper brands now have neodymium filters available but I don't remember comparing them to the baader. Back in the day baader was the only game In town for ndym filters.
Still a subtle effect, but at 95% light transmission sometimes I would just put the Neodymium in front of the diagonal and just do all viewing with it in. It does impart a slight magenta/purplish/bluish tint, but it is generally not bothersome. The semi apo while supposedly neutral, has a very subtle greenish tint to it.
@@k.h.1587 I've come to the realization that I cannot tolerate false colors. I can live with coma but false colors make me crazy.
I've had mixed luck with filters too. Currently my favorite is the Optolong L-Enhance APS-C filter I use for my nebula photos. Great video!
Thank you. I accidentally bought an Optolong 1.25 filter and just kept it and tried it out on my telescope but I didn't like it that much. I have to review my notes and see why I didn't like it.
@@tsulasbigadventures Yes mam, I'd like to know. I've never used them for visual astronomy but they work great for imaging deep sky objects. I plan on getting a Dob at some point and don't want to make an expensive mistake like that. Thanks!
@@astronormy You're welcome. Do your homework before you purchase a Dobsonian.
@@tsulasbigadventures If you ever made a video on it. I'd watch it. ;)
Another interesting video. It’s great to see visual astronomy on RUclips
Thank you!
Hands down the best video on Nebula filters!
Thank you! That is a very nice compliment.
Very informative video. Thank you for taking the time to make it.
Thank you. I'm glad you found it useful.
I bought an 2 inch SvBONY UHC filter and plan on getting the 1.25 inch one as well only because the Orion Ultra Block is more than twice the price. I have an old 1.25 inch Meade #8 Yellow and a 2 inch Astromania #8 Yellow to reduce the Chromatic aberration of my 90mm Acromat. It would probably also work in my Meade 6 inch refractor but that thing is a beast about 5 1/2 feet long in need of a good mount. I also have an Orion SkyGlow 1.25 inch from many years ago.
I ordered an Orion Ultrablock and it has been on backorder for months now. I have one for when I am in the Bay Area but wanted one for my Montana observing site. It's a good filter but in addition to being overpriced it's never available. I think the Astromania UHC is pretty decent. I have never heard of that SkyGlow. What is it supposed to do? Do those yellow filters really work to fix chromatic aberration? I have never heard of that before but my refractors are all apochromats. I know what you mean about 6" refractors. My Evostar 6" is a best too.
Glad you weren’t hurt more seriously. Great video.
Thanks, Chris.
This cleared a lot of concepts on Filters, thanks a bunch for making this video.
Appreciate your speedy response! I'm starting your amateur astronomer classes now that I see you provide answers to many of my current qusetions so hopefully I won't bog you down with "amateur" qustions. Thanks
No problem. Ask away! I started thinking about eyepieces for planets and I thought I should point out that, though I don't own any, Orthoscopic eyepieces are considered to be the best for planets. In fact, I think I should get myself one just for planets and see for myself.
So I thought I heard you say to stay away from 2" even though my Meade 8" came with a 2inch setup? I alreaday have two eyepieces that are 2" and are working OK. @@tsulasbigadventures
Nice video...worth a try is using a focal reducer with the SCT, the Celestron f6.3 is able to used visually
Actually I bought a Celestron f6.3 reducer and put it on my 8" SCT but I didn't see that it improved anything.
Thank you Tsula for all the great info that you share with us. It’s always such a pleasure to learn from you.
Thank you so much.
I'm back Tsula. Slim pickings last nite on the Bayou. The moon and Jupiter were all I could see. Had a good time till the clouds rolled in. I prefer the UHC filter over the variable polarizing filter. My colorblindness does effect my vision somewhat for the best when I am hunting fuzzy. Clear sky's. And put a cold Ribeye. on your bobo. It 'll be alright.
Jackie: Last night I saw the full moon rising over the mountains which was really neat but then it clouded over completely here too. That is so interesting about your color blindness. I guess Steve was right that it does help somewhat. I don't have any ribeyes but my bobo could sure use one because it looks like a colorful nebula photo right now. Thank you.
Good Day/Evening. Excellent presentation. I am on my 2nd Meade LX200 telescope. This one is also 10" but has GPS with enhanced mirror coatings. It is now 14 years old. I am 71 years old and it's gotten kinda heavy. I'd love to replace it with another LX200 model in 8", but its just too expensive these days. Thank You & Best Regards
You can get the LX90 in 8" and the optics will be identical. I have the Meade 8" LX85 and I love it. It weighs I think 12 pounds with finder scope.
@@tsulasbigadventuresThank You. I have briefly looked at them, a while back. Guess it's time to check them out. I'm strictly visual, not doing photo or imaging. Best Regards
@@tsulasbigadventures P.S. !!! Wow. I just found out that "OPT" Oceanside Photo & Telescope went out of business last year! I bought both of my 10" LX200s and much more from them over the years. "Agena Astro" now owns them, and OPT no longer exists. 76 years in business.
At least there is someone to take their place.
@@timmotel5804 In that case I think you would be extremely happy with either the LX85 or the LX90 8". They have identical optics to the LX200 except the LX200 has mirror lock and since you are strictly visual that will not be necessary for you. Take care.
I bought the televue bandmate oiii filter cause people said it was basically second to lumicon and it gave me my first view of the eastern veil nebula through my 8” dobsonian. Then I got a 12” dobsonian and both veils went from being faintly visible in my 8”, to being pretty much obvious in my 12”. And I’m in a bortle 6
That's great. it must be a pretty good filter. I don't own any Televue filters but the Lumicon filters are very expensive. It would be interesting to compare the Lumicon head on with my Orion OIII and see if the huge increase in price is really worth it.
It says on the container the filter comes in that it’s made in Germany by Astronomik
So good to hear all this information. Thank you very much.
You're welceom and thanks for watching.
i used a 102f5 to view the North American nebula. i have to look at my diary what eps i used and filters. I have all 4 1.25" models, broadband/narrowband/03/h beta then i have two 2" models i think its the narrowband & 03. My 4" refractor has a 2" focuser so i used my meade 32mm 2" super wide 68 FOV but i cant remember what filter i used. OR unless i used my 2" 56mm EP i cant remember i need to check what i used
I was able to fit the whole nebula in the frame of the EP and there was still a bit room around the FOV.
The skinner part where it looks like the gulf of Mexico is the darker area and it really looked like the pics. I was at a grey zone or bortle 2
After I made this video I decided to get a 2" H Beta filter for a cheap 2" 56mm Plossl I had bought because with my big 12" SCT it's hard to achieve a big enough field of view for something humongous like the North America Nebula or CA Nebula. I thought that cheap eye piece would be terrible but it was actually pretty good and I was able to see both NA and CA nebulae with it. I didn't need the filter for the North America Nebula in Montana which is a Bortle 3. I saw the North America Nebula one time at a little Bortle 4/5 site sandwiched in between San Jose and San Francisco, using an O-III filter because that was all I had. I think for some of the harder fainter nebulae a dark sky is key.
Interesting Tsula I really dont know much about filters for visual so it was a good intro.
Thanks. Filters are like astro cameras; soon you find yourself owning many.
@@tsulasbigadventurestell me about it !!Oh and by the way I sympathize with your fall, I also fell with my Heq5 the other day no injuries but I looked incredibly silly lying on the lawn with a Equatorial mount lying on me 😮. Hope you recover well.
@@AstroSoundscape Ollie: I'm glad you didn't get injured. That Losmandy is very heavy and inflicted maximum damage to me. In addition to the black eye and ugly bruise across my cheek, it slammed my head onto the concrete and my back and part of the mount smashed into my chest. I have trouble breathing at times but I'm sure I will eventually have a full recovery. Thank you for your sympathy.
@@tsulasbigadventures That's awful Tsula , I'm darn sorry to hear that, you get plenty of cups of tea and get fully better soon.
Thanks Tsula!
You're welcome and thank you for watching.
I love your channel!
Thank you!
Interesting. I have found that the Astronomik UHC is the best of the bunch especially in larger aperture scopes. Perhaps it was the smoke and poor transparency.
Could be because the smoke and transparency were awful that night.
@@msroper5287 I try not to just accept all the advice and reviews I read about this and that on forums and especially anything written on Wikipedia which is full of misinformation and outright lies. I try to figure out what is helpful and what is just wrong or someone who is an exponent of a certain product or even way of looking at something-- for example, as you mentioned someone who says to "never look at an object with certain filters." The best thing anyone can do regarding nebula filters or anything else in life is to experiment yourself and come to your own conclusions. I realize that is not always practical-- you can't just go out and buy every single brand and type of filter or telescope or anything else. But to the extent possible the heuristic approach to learning the best way to see things or do things is most of the time superior to given advice. However, sometimes it's best to figure out reliable sources and accept good advice from those people based on actual data. I learned a lot about what works best by going out into the field with the few filters I now own and switching back and forth and seeing what results I obtained. I read some things about filters on your web site and now I will see if I can find out what Knisely and Pensack have to say about it. Thanks for your helpful insight.
Good grief, I'm so sorry to hear about the Losmandy mount incursion, Tsula -- OUCH! I hope you made it stand in the corner by itself for a while. 😃 Honestly, you look just fine but I'm sure it doesn't feel fine. The video was great! Thanks so much for providing all that information and your hands-on experience with the different filters you have. That was very helpful for me since I'm always 'focusing' on astrophotography filters. The couple of times I was able to use the visual OIII filter you recommended (some videos ago), I was impressed! Thanks for that recommendation, and thanks for another great video. I always learn something!
Hi Greg. Thank you. To me I look like a monster but more than the ugly bruises, I am all banged up physically. The bruise on my cheek is staring to turn very bright nebula colors. Very embarrassing. I was in such shock when the mount fell on me that I never even checked it to see if it was OK. And yes it is in the corner for being bad.
I'm glad you liked the video. Thank you and take care.
@@tsulasbigadventures Hi Tsula. I hope you're recovering and the bruises and soreness are going away. Just a thought for a future episode (when you're unable to get outside in the future). I use Bracken's "The Astrophotography Sky Atlas" to narrow down my astrophotography targets, and I was reading his introductory chapter on the different catalogs and naming conventions for celestial objects. I found it very interesting and though your subscribers, especially those new to astronomy, might like to know where the different (sometimes crazy sounding!) names come from. I was thinking about you throwing your wit, charm, and unique style into the history of it all and I like what I 'saw' in my mind's eye! (I looked back through your videos and didn't see this specifically, but if I missed it my apologies -- and just disregard.) Hope you're having some clear, dark skies in the wilds of MT (or wherever you are).
@@gregerianne3880 Hi Greg: Thank you for the suggestion. I will give it a shot. It's been cloudy and raining. So, I have time for some research now. I was researching exit pupil and entrance pupil, something Steve Waldee and Regina Roper have been telling me to pay more attention to in order to maximize my chance of seeing faint objects. They have an incredible website that is a wealth of information about observational astronomy and I often find hours have passed after starting to read it. Steve wrote a program years ago for DOS that he says will also work on Windows, that calculates the entrance pupil needed and best filter etc for hundreds of objects. I am trying to get it to work on my Windows 10 computer but that sort of thing is not my forte. So, I'm still working on it. It's a shame my best friend from third grade joined an ashram because she has a Master's Degree in Computer Science from UCLA and could easily figure it out. I took Fortran in freshman college and it was the only C I ever made in college. Well, thank you for the suggestion. I will put it on my list of future projects and look into it. It sounds like a fun topic. Thank you for asking about my injury too. T I am feeling much better. My shiner is gone but I still have an ugly bruise on my cheek and a deep bruise to my breast bone that makes it hard to lift anything. Other than that I feel much better. Take care.
@@tsulasbigadventures So glad to hear you're on the mend, Tsula! I like the exit pupil topic. I think this is a poorly understood and neglected topic that would benefit those who aren't familiar with it. Great idea. Well, I'm a bit computer savvy, so I'd be happy to help if I can with getting the program to run. (In the olden days, I used to be a FORTRAN and C programmer for about 5-6 years or so. Don't know much about Web programming, though. I left the field before that became widespread.) Let me know if I can help!
@@gregerianne3880 I had this feeling, I don't know why, that you were a former programmer. Oh dear, you must think me silly for getting a C in Fortran. In my defense, my college adviser was an imbecile and told me to take Fortran seeing it as the future, even though it had nothing to do with my major in Political Science. Anyway, Steve says you cannot put URls in RUclips comments. Let's see if that's true. Here is the URL to his free software calculator: reginacelestial.byethost3.com/steve_waldee/index.html
The instructions say to copy the Dos file and the Eyepiece file into your C directory. I started to download the two files but that was as far as I got because where do you copy the two files into the directory? Do you copy from the download? Unfortunately Steve does not have a way to contact him on his vast website. This program allegedly works on Windows up to 10, not sure about Windows 11.
Hi Tsula. Great video on filters. I have a uhc and a variable polarizing filter. Can't wait to try them. I am color blind I hope they help.😅
Hello to the Bayou. Thanks, Jackie. I'm sure they will help except I don't know how light polluted it is where you observe. That can really hinder seeing the fainter nebulae. Clear skies!
@@msroper5287 Interesting. Jackie you will have to let us know if the filter works out really well for you.
Colour blindness shouldn't be a problem because it's your rods that are doing almost all the work at this light level, which don't care about the wavelength that's stimulating them. The filter will still be letting a greater ratio of nebula light to background light through, which is what matters. So the filter will still improve the view for you.
@@barthvapour Good point.
I purchased last April a Celestron NexStar 8SE using 2” eyepieces.
Has anyone published a document itemizing which filter is best for viewing the most popular objects? I realize this is a rather open ended question and probably has a lot of “it depends” circumstances.
BTW, great helpful video. I really appreciate your work.
Thank you. You can look up this information for specific objects and find some listed in the Astronomer's Handbook published by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. I know about this one because I am a member. They also have a calculator on their web site. There was another one that Steve Waldee published on his web site that I downloaded but recently I found out that he no longer supports his web site. There is another online calculator that I found by just searching on Google. Other than that I usually just look it up for each item I intend to look at when preparing my observing sesssion. I don't own Burnham's Handbook. So, I'm not sure if it lists best filter to use but I own Interstellarium and it tells you whether to use a filter and the best one for hundreds of objects. That two volume set is expensive but excellent.
@@tsulasbigadventures Oh my goodness. Thank you so very much for your time and effort in responding to my question. You provided me with tons more than I expected, thanks again.
@@bradmiller3557 You're welcome.
Great info as usual! I just bought a Meade 8 LX 85 OTA with my ZWOAM5 mount but having trouble with eyepieces. Baader Hyperion 68 10mm and Starguider 8-24 zoom and the basic Meade eypeices that came with the scope. What should I use for planets and which is better for deep sky?
For planets I splurged on a very expensive 10mm Ethos that works great. One time when it was particularly steady I even put it on top of a 2x Barlow. But normally I think 10mm is about the limit unless the seeing is very good. I start out with a 36mm, I think it's a Hyperion, and go to the 10mm from there. I pretty much limit myself to those two eyepieces most of the time. A lot of my eyepieces are in Montana. I bought an 8mm Stellarvue but I don't think it's as good as the 10mm (well it cost a fraction of the cost of that 10mm). Hope that helps.
Yas you do
You have several telescopes, but why not just use the 12" all the time? It has the greatest light grasp and best resolution. It would be interesting to know why you would choose to use a smaller instrument and the percentage of time you spend with each of your scopes.
That's a very good question. For the planets and the moon no telescope I own can rival my 12" telescope. You want the biggest aperture telescope you have for planets. But some deep sky objects are just too big for a telescope with a 3048mm focal length. I use a 36mm eyepiece and that still gives me 100x magnification. Some objects such as the North America Nebula, just to name one, require low magnification and a wide field of view that I just can't get on that 12" telescope. I would just my little refractor to see a lot more of NGC 7000 or NGC 1499 or maybe even to try to fit all of the Veil Nebula in one field of view (I haven't tried that yet). So, the number one reason to use a smaller scope would be the benefit of the wider field of view and lower magnification I can achieve. A secondary consideration is that my 12" telescope is extremely heavy but since I have it on a JMI Wheeley Bar I can wheel it out onto the driveway and after centering two stars be ready to observe in five minutes. Unless I put the refractor on a manual alt az mount I would have to use one of my German Equatorial Mounts and that means polar aligning and that adds about 20-30 minutes of set up time. But the main reason to use the refractor is for getting a wider field of view on a smaller telescope. If you read Sue French's excellent book, Deep Sky Wonders, you will see that she goes back and forth between her 102mm refractor and her 10" reflector. Ken Hewitt-White also goes back and forth between his 4" refractor and his 8" Dobsonian. Percentage wise I spend the most time with my 12" telescope. I love that telescope and it is by far my favorite telescope. I love my 6" refractor also but it is so heavy and requires a heavy mount to hold it, take a long time to set up and is so long that often I have to get on the ground to look through it for objects at the zenith. I don't use it very much since I got the 115mm refractor. The Mak-Cass I use to travel out of town and use it the least. I have been borrowing my friend's 90mm refractor which has incredible optics. On a clear night with good seeing and good transparency it can split tight double stars and even shows some faint nebulae well. Thanks for asking such an astute question.
PS: The Meade 8" SCT and 80mm refractor are in another state.
@@tsulasbigadventures 👍
@@knarf9335 One more thing I forgot to mention is the exit pupil of your telescope which should match the entrance pupil of your own eye in order to get the clearest sharpest views. With my 12" telescope the best exit pupil I can achieve with my 36mm eyepiece is 3.6mm, while I believe my old eyes can still dilate to 5mm. I am planning a video at some point in the future on the exit pupil.
@@msroper5287 Thanks. I'm going to go read it right now.
What filters do you recommend for the Omegon 2x54 field binoculars? I just want to see the milky way and as many stars as possible while looking at the night sky near a small city.
As far as I know, nebula filters only come in 1.25" and 2" sizes. The times I have used nebula filters on my 10x42 binoculars to try to see challenging things in the sky I just gently pushed the 1.25" filter into the eyecup on one side and looked. Of course it would be better to use two filters one for each eyecup but I didn't have two. But using this method I was able to see Barnard's Loop in Orion and also NGC7000 in Cygnus.
Interesting video. So if I understood correctly, the CLS filter is for galaxies and the UHC for nebula ?
After this video I bought a CLS filter and tried it out. I found that it was not very helpful and that the most useful filter is the UHC for nebulae.
@@tsulasbigadventures I have a 4 inch ED FPL51 refractor that I use for visual observations only, would it make sense to buy a UHC or even a CLS filter ?
@@3dfxvoodoocards6 The UHC absolutely. How are the sky conditions where you observe? If it's light polluted then the CLS will help you too.
@@tsulasbigadventures I live in a Bortle 6 city, a lot of light pollution but not an extreme level.
@@3dfxvoodoocards6 In that case I think a CLS filter would help you. It's hard to see faint nebulae in a Bortle 6. But if you ever take your telescope out to a dark sky site then a UHC filter will be a good addition to your equipment.
Broadband LP filters work on nebulae, not galaxies
Someone else also commented that it can work on nebulae. So, I plan to get one and compare and maybe make a follow up video at a later date.
@@tsulasbigadventures broadband filters are basically like a UHC but with a much wider bandpass, and they also pass the red spectrum. Basically they focus on blocking the sodium, mercury and incandescent lighting rather than only passing the OIII and Hb like a UHC does. Since most galaxies are broad spectrum objects, the filters don't really work on them.
But don't go out of your way to get a broadband filter, they are very subtle, stick with OIII and UHC.
Some broadband filters like the CLS are exceptions, they are pretty nice.
A company made a galaxy filter in the 2000s, a friend tried one, it was subtle at best, not worth the $200 it cost.
The trick to narrowband filters is getting in the right exit pupil range, which is where 2" eyepieces come in handy. A 50mm axiom or 55-56 plossl gives a better OIII view of the veil in an SCT than a 38-42mm range superwide/pan or a 31 nagler. Going to 2" on an SCT really opens things up for Max field of view and brightness/larger exit pupils. A 6.3 reducer and a 32 or 40 plossl is a 1.25 substitute, but nothing really beats going to 2". On 10" and 11" and larger scopes, be sure to go the route of Peterson eyeopener or otherwise use a 2" visual back or micro focuser that screws onto the 3.25" rear cell. Using a 2" diagonal or visual back that threads to the 2" step down plate will vignette the light cone. Since you will then be using refractor style 2" diagonals, you can just thread 2" filters to the front of the diagonal and use the same filter for both 1.25" and 2" eyepieces.
I didn't know the Crab Nebula is in Taurus rather than Cancer, just like the Swan Nebula is in Sagittarius rather than Cygnus. 🙂
@@msroper5287 Actually, the mistake was mine, not Tsula's. I was making fun of myself. Having never observed the Crab Nebula, I put two and two together and got five. 🙃
@@msroper5287 By the way, the first filter which I ever heard of, apart from lunar and solar filters - we had solar filters back in the day, despite the danger of relying solely on glass positioned where the sun's light was nearly the strongest and hottest - was one which blocks sodium light (from streetlamps). And now that I've done some research, I see that fancier filters block mercury light as well, and the "neutral [not ionized] oxygen" sky glow. I wonder how well those work.
Walter: I noticed later, after publishing this video that I misspelled "emission" at one point and I immediately thought to myself, "the first thing Walter is going to say is that I misspelled "emission" at however many minutes and whatever seconds.
@@tsulasbigadventures I missed that one. 🙂 But never mind - while commenting on a different channel, I struggled to spell "sherbet" correctly even though, through researching ancient Persian history, I'm thoroughly familiar with the word's origin. I've always pronounced it "sherbert" - so I wondered why the spell-checker was redlining me. This was an excellent video, by the way, filled with your usual charm and enthusiasm - so I hope I wasn't wrong to laugh a little at 0:37. 🙂
@@waltergold3457 Thanks. No problem. I think what the other comment said is so true. When I was working, I would write briefs and spell check and edit and review and inevitably right after filing it, would notice some embarrassing horrible error. Your eyes start to pass over the mistake after the fifth, sixth or so edit.
tsula be careful haha
Thanks!