Nebula filters

Ok, you guys are right!!! UHC and OIII work well on some Nebulas. For instance, the Veil. I would switch between the two and each had it's advantage, disadvantage. I don't remember which one causes stars to have color fringe, but who cares. Either one made the Veil visible, without them not too visable.

Ok, my next question; Are there other filters that work with Nebula like Dumbell or Ring? The aforementioned filters just dim these objects.

Has anyone tried one of these? http://www.cloudynights.com/item.php?item_id=1578
And if so, what are your comments?

Jim

A little research will help if you are trying to decide what filter will work on what deep sky object. The Lumicon website has some fantastic graphs showing why a certian filter will work and why it will not.

http://www.lumicon.com/categories_sub.php?cid=1&cn=Filters

I have used these graphs several times in my club meetings to explain why one will work and one will not. They also show just how close the OIII and UHC filters are to each other.

Hope this helps
Bill W.
Raleigh Astronomy Club

Your OIII will work on M57 & 27

Bob

Joe, here is my favorite nebular filter:
http://www.sciencecenter.net/hutech/idas/lpsv3.htm

It passes much more light than on O-III (even though it isolates that band as well as others) and I have used it in my ED66mm scope. It has the added advantage of working on comets. It did a good job of increasing the contrast on comet Swan.

If you have light pollution in your area (Mercury vapor lamps, etc) you might want to try their LPS filter:
http://www.sciencecenter.net/hutech/idas/lps.htm
This one is a favorite of astro-imagers but it works very well visually too.

Of course, as with any filter the more aperture you have, the better they work, but with small scopes just keep the magnification low.

David E

Try an MSG filter. That is the Neodymium Moon and Skyglow filter made by Baader Planetarium. Get them from Astro Physics or Alpine Astronomical and possibly Anacortes carries them. I bought most of my Baader filters from Astro Physics, and the service was very fast and the prices are much more reasonable than the Thousand Oaks or Lumicon nebula filters. This filter is built on a Zeiss patent and of very high quality, optically and mechanically. Nobody but Baader has this filter, and I'm surprised it is priced so reasonably relative to other brands.

The MSG filter does not darken your view, but does knock out most manmade light pollution and gives the sky background a darker contrast while leaving nebulae and galaxies relatively untouched. My UHC and OIII filters hardly see any use anymore and a 2" MSG is standard filter and dust blocker on my 6" MCT and 8" SNT. It's also a good planetary and lunar filter and there's hardly any reason to take it out of the optical path unless you have heavy filtration needs.