Telescope Reviews: Color filters........OMG.

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Equipment Discussions >> Eyepieces

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Scanning4Comets
Markus

Reged: 12/26/04

Loc: Deep Space!

Re: Color filters........OMG. new

new

[Re: Sarkikos]
#5303466 - 07/05/12 09:49 AM

This thread has obviously veered off topic, but I wanted to add my 2 cents about binoviewing.

I also had a binoviewer. I really liked it for looking at the planets because I could relax both eyes when viewing. Binoviewing really is cool when everything comes into place, but I found after a while I preferred mono viewing.

This was only because I had to: Put a counterweight on the tube, put in a barlow to reach focus, put on binoviewers, grab one eyepiece, grab another eyepiece, fiddle with two focusers on the binoviewer, fiddle again with IPD, fiddle again focusing both eyepieces, and the list goes on.

If all of this could be done in one fell swoop, I would go out and buy two pairs of binoviewers!!! In the end, I left the binoviewers and eyepieces in the case and stuck with mono views.....as it was less of a hassle messing around.

Now....back to color filters...sorry for the off topic post!

Cheers,

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amicus sidera
Carpal Tunnel

Reged: 10/14/11

Loc: East of the Sun, West of the M...

Re: Color filters........OMG. new

new

[Re: Sarkikos]
#5303503 - 07/05/12 10:19 AM

Quote:

amicus sidera,

Quote:

Is there any particular model that you can recommend?

Mine is a Burgess Binoviewer that I bought used several years ago. It is an older model that only allows eyepieces with a field stop up to about 23mm without vignetting. But it is great for planet and Moon observation, where low powers and wide fields are not important. (I usually don't binoview DSO anyway.) Also, the collimation appears to be right on. I've experimented with magnifications up to 600x for Mars and I still get decent images!

But if I were to acquire a binoviewer at this point, I think I'd get the Baader MaxBright. I hear that it has built-in correction for coma. It is impossible - as far as I know - to use simultaneously my binoviewer and a Paracorr. It's either one or the other. I've never noticed any appreciable degradation of a planet image due to coma, so I opt for the binoviewer, which does certainly enhance contrast and perception of fine surface detail, at least to my eyes.

Mike

Thanks much, Mike! The MaxBright looks like the way to go, based on price and performance. If I'm reading the information I've turned up correctly, the MaxBright's coma correction comes from an optional 1.7x lens.

Also, the Maxbright is threaded for standard color filters (way to segue back onto topic, no?)

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Starman1
Vendor (EyepiecesEtc.com)

Reged: 06/24/03

Loc: Los Angeles

Re: Color filters........OMG. new

new

[Re: amicus sidera]
#5307186 - 07/07/12 06:43 PM

As for color filters, I generally don't use them when the seeing is good because they seem to slightly un-sharpen the details I'm looking at.

Yet, through the years I've used nearly every color of filter and have found the following:

Mercury--a yellow filter enhances contrast and sharpens the image.
Venus--no filter at all or a blue filter to sharpen the edges.
Moon--Neutral density to darken or yellow filter to enhance contrast
Mars--blue filter to enhance ice cap or clouds, yellow filter to enhance dust storms, red-orange or red filter to enhance dark markings, magenta filter to enhance clouds and dark markings at the same time.
Jupiter--blue filter to enhance the darker bands and details therein.
Saturn--blue filter to enhance cloud bands, yellow filter to enhance ring contrast
Uranus--no filter
Neptune--no filter

Blue--I use #80A
Yellow--I use #15 yellow
Red--I use #23A red-orange or #25 red
Magenta--I use a #30 magenta
Neutral density--If I use this, a 25% transmission (medium)

Bear in mind that these filters all reduce brightness. At very high powers, assuming the seeing allows them, you may find, as I do, that no filter at all will outperform filters. I have found that all filters reduce the quality of the image some. I no longer recommend variable polarizing filters for this reason--to my eye they reduce the image quality to an unacceptable degree.

Filters also vary in quality because they're very inexpensive. I was lucky enough to be able to try several of each color, and found some samples to be better than others, even though, theoretically, all had "optical glass". If you find one produces a noticeably fuzzier image than with no filter, exchange the filter for another of the same and you may see a noticeable improvement.

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Doc Bob
professor emeritus

Reged: 02/27/09

Loc: Maryland, USA

Re: Color filters........OMG. new

new

[Re: Starman1]
#5307408 - 07/07/12 09:42 PM

I agree with Don; I found that the Baader SemiAPO filter works very well for me. Best views of Mars and Saturn in any of my scopes . . . can't wait to try it on Jupiter.

Bob

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Lew Zealand
scholastic sledgehammer

Reged: 06/28/04

Loc: Pasadena, CA

Re: Color filters........OMG. new

new

[Re: Doc Bob]
#5313664 - 07/12/12 01:13 AM

I borrowed some color filters a while ago to try on plants but didn't like the monochromatic view. I do need to give them a second chance one of these days.

However I do use 1 strange filter for Mars: a 9 year old Lumicon UHC filter. It has a red passband in addition to the narrow UCH transmission and I find it does a rather excellent job of increasing the contrast of dark features among with not mucking up the color rendition of the planet. It took some time to use well as it seems to try to separate the 2 color passbands if you look slightly off center so you have to keep your head steady, but I really do like it. I believe I had another person (other than Mrs. Z) look through this setup and they were not impressed, but it works for me. An Orion Ultrablock, lacking the red passband, does not give a satisfying view of Mars.

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GpB311
sage

Reged: 05/29/12

Loc: Los Angeles, CA

Re: Color filters........OMG. new

new

[Re: amicus sidera]
#5314366 - 07/12/12 01:49 PM

I was offered a good deal on a few colored filters and a ND filter, which I wanted for nights I feel like viewing the moon.(My one nd filter wasnt enough once the moon got big enough)

Ive seen a little more detail with the filters, but really its just offered a little entertainment in seeing Saturn as a pretty, glowing blue planet. Ill never see Neptune that big, or with those rings of course, so I just pretend. Saturn looks good with the yellow filter as well...A little more what I expect it to look like I suppose.

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Starman1
Vendor (EyepiecesEtc.com)

Reged: 06/24/03

Loc: Los Angeles

Re: Color filters........OMG. new

new

[Re: GpB311]
#5314399 - 07/12/12 02:06 PM

Quote:

I was offered a good deal on a few colored filters and a ND filter, which I wanted for nights I feel like viewing the moon.(My one nd filter wasnt enough once the moon got big enough)

Ive seen a little more detail with the filters, but really its just offered a little entertainment in seeing Saturn as a pretty, glowing blue planet. Ill never see Neptune that big, or with those rings of course, so I just pretend. Saturn looks good with the yellow filter as well...A little more what I expect it to look like I suppose.

Yellow enhances contrast, so it works great to enhance sharpness of Ring details, or shadows of the rings on the planet.
As with Jupiter, the blue filter enhances the darker band features on the disc.
The natural color of Saturn is a cream-yellow color with whiter highlights, while the rings are nearly pure white.

Jupiter, on the other hand, has many more tints and colors on its disc.

Mars is the planet where a large variety of color filters have effect. Different colors of filters enhance different details, from violet to deep red.

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Scanning4Comets
Markus

Reged: 12/26/04

Loc: Deep Space!

Re: Color filters........OMG. new

new

[Re: Starman1]
#5314514 - 07/12/12 02:51 PM

As far as there being a certain "color" cast on any planet, when I did have color filters, I just ignored the color cast and looked for the extra detail any color filters offered.

Color filters are just used to boost contrast of diff areas.

Cheers,

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MAURITS
professor emeritus

Reged: 09/22/09

Loc: Diksmuide (Belgium)

Re: Color filters........OMG. new

new

[Re: Scanning4Comets]
#5328082 - 07/21/12 11:14 AM

Some brands have "color filters" for CCD imaging, like the Astronomik RGB filterset.

This set consists of: Red, Green, Blue and the Luminance filter.

Are this 3 color filter (except the L-filter), useful for planatary "visual" observation?

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brianb11213
Postmaster

Reged: 02/25/09

Loc: 55.215N 6.554W

Re: Color filters........OMG. new

new

[Re: MAURITS]
#5328304 - 07/21/12 01:34 PM

Quote:

Are this 3 color filter (except the L-filter), useful for planatary "visual" observation?

Can't think offhand of a visual use for the blue.

The green is good for the moon (but may not be dense enough to give you as much comfort as you'd like) & bands on Jupiter & Saturn. The red is about equivalent to the 25A & is quite good for Mars.

The luminance filter passes everything the eye can see and is absolutely useless for visual observing. It's the same as an UV/IR blocking filter.

TBH I think for visual purposes you're better off with the ordinary coloured glass filters, which are a lot cheaper.

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MAURITS
professor emeritus

Reged: 09/22/09

Loc: Diksmuide (Belgium)

Re: Color filters........OMG. new

new

[Re: brianb11213]
#5328342 - 07/21/12 02:09 PM

Thanks Brian.

Is here someone who know the equivalent wratten nr. for the "blue" color filter from Astronomik?

Is it worth the extra money for only 3 colors (red, green, blue) to observe planets?

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Starman1
Vendor (EyepiecesEtc.com)

Reged: 06/24/03

Loc: Los Angeles

Re: Color filters........OMG. new

new

[Re: MAURITS]
#5328353 - 07/21/12 02:22 PM

Blue filters:
82A--light blue
80A--blue
38A--really dark blue
47--dark indigo blue, very low transmission

Transmission percentages go up as you go toward the 82A in that list.
Generally, I recommend #82A for 4" scopes and smaller, 80A for 5" to 20" +/-, and 38A for really large scopes.

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MAURITS
professor emeritus

Reged: 09/22/09

Loc: Diksmuide (Belgium)

Re: Color filters........OMG. new

new

[Re: Starman1]
#5328362 - 07/21/12 02:27 PM

Thanks Don for the blue color code!

Is it worth the extra money for only 3 colors (red, green, blue) to observe planets?

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brianb11213
Postmaster

Reged: 02/25/09

Loc: 55.215N 6.554W

Re: Color filters........OMG. new

new

[Re: MAURITS]
#5328471 - 07/21/12 03:49 PM

Quote:

Generally, I recommend #82A for 4" scopes and smaller, 80A for 5" to 20" +/-, and 38A for really large scopes.

#38A can be used for tricolour imaging but it's inefficient. Generally speaking modern tricolour filter sets are using dichroic (interference) coatings rather than coloured glass, this gives a higher transmission in band and a steeper cutoff.

#47 - used with a filter which blocks the leakage in the deep red - is actually very good for observing the faint shadings on Venus; they stand out even better in invisible ultraviolet but that is obviously imaging only. A lighter blue filter (80A) can be useful for visual observation of clouds on Mars but that's fairly advanced observing. In other cases, filters are an aid to seeing faint details rather than a "magic bullet". Beginners really need only a good quality neutral density filter to counteract the glare when observing bright objects in dark skies (planets, moon). You will get more help by training the eye than you ever will from a set of coloured filters.

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Starman1
Vendor (EyepiecesEtc.com)

Reged: 06/24/03

Loc: Los Angeles

Re: Color filters........OMG. new

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[Re: brianb11213]
#5328598 - 07/21/12 05:30 PM

That is true. Reduce the intensity of the light and you will see more colors and more details.

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Sarkikos
Postmaster

Reged: 12/18/07

Loc: Suburban Maryland, USA

Re: Color filters........OMG. new

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[Re: Starman1]
#5328694 - 07/21/12 06:39 PM

Another way to reduce the intensity of the light from bright planets is to reduce the apparent intensity of that light to the eyes. This can be done by observing bright planets in areas which have plenty of ambient light instead of under dark skies - in other words, at home in the suburbs or city instead of at a dark site, assuming the observer doesn't live at a dark site.

Or the observer can look at the reflection on a sheet of white paper from a bright white flashlight every so often to keep the eyes toward photopic levels.
But they shouldn't use white light at a dark site if other observers are around!

I've never seen an advantage to using filters to dim the intensity of light from planets, with the exception of Venus. IME & IMO, it makes more sense to keep the eyes adapted to that level of light. Filters are best used - if used at all - to make various surface features easier to see.

Mike

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MAURITS
professor emeritus

Reged: 09/22/09

Loc: Diksmuide (Belgium)

Re: Color filters........OMG. [Re: Sarkikos]
#5329259 - 07/22/12 03:15 AM

Thanks all for the clear answers!

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blizz
member

Reged: 03/16/12

Re: Color filters........OMG. new

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[Re: BillP]
#5349813 - 08/03/12 07:28 AM

Quote:

I generally don't use them because I can see a degredation in the image when I place a filter on the bottom of an eyepiece. A very small edge to the sharpness of the image goes away to my eye. However, I find that if I place the filter between my eye and the eye lens, then the original sharpness of the image seems to be preserved. This is of course difficult with standard filters. However, with a sample gel-filter pack, can get hundreds of small sheets to experiment with and easy to slip these over the eye lens for a quick eval if it helps the image Rosco Sample Pack.

The only exception for me so far is the Vernonscope Magenta Filter. I find this filter keeps the image sharp, as well as bringing in the hard to see details better (on Mars at least, have not tried it on other planets). Downside is due to it's non-standard threading, you need to pay a little more for the adapter. Of course no adapter is needed if you have Brandon eyepieces.

Bill would you be so kind as to tell me how these work? I'm sure you can't let them touch the eyepiece. I was looking at the moon last night. I put on my moon filter, but it was still blinding. Thanks. blizz

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