0111 Filter Shootout Again!

Started by Rod Kaufman, 11/06/2011 06:27AM
Posted 11/06/2011 06:27AM Opening Post
First, let me say that under adverse conditions including a 3/4 moon, moderate light pollution, and having a cold front just move through, the night was just awesome! I always assumed it's pointless to attempt to observe under a moonlit sky but I see that's not the case. If you've got the proper filters, there's still a lot that can be seen. It's almost the same feeling I sense some imagers have when they image under a full moon with the proper filters and still get amazing results.
I did have good seeing conditions on Saturday night so I put my newly acquired Zhumell filter kit up against my Orion UHC, 0111 and Celestron 0111 filters. The Zhumell kit stacks up as follows: the UHC works well and compares favorably with the Orion UHC filter and that's a good thing as the Orion ultrablock filter has a solid reputation as a quality filter. The Zhumell 0111 is the weakest of the 0111 filters I've tested but it still allows you to view the veil and the crescent and the ring and M27 and the fetus nebula under the conditions described above. The veil was washed out compared to the Orion and Celestron 0111 filters. However, the view of the crescent nebula was more favorable and it was difficult to determine if the Orion 0111 gave a better view or not. While I'd give the clear edge to the Celestron(baader)filter on the veil, the views of M27 were close and much less dramatically different than on the veil. I'd give the edge to the Orion 0111 on the ring and on the fetus nebula(NGC7008)but the Zhumell 0111 wasn't far behind. I felt the Celestron 0111 overly darkened the field of the image of the ring and the fetus nebula.
I do have to state once more that I was delighted to see the aforementioned objects as well as I did, considering the overall conditions being far less than optimum except for the relatively good seeing(varying between a 3/5 and a 4/5).
So how did the rest of the Zhumell filter kit do? In general, it performed as expected. The urban sky glow filter is seemingly useless but I need to test it under less demanding circumstances. As noted above, the UHC filter is very good, and I'd rate the 0111 filter as acceptable in performance and it would likely do even better under darker skies. The two filter polarizing filter system works very well and I actually enjoyed viewing the moon without the feeling of my eye being zapped out of my head! It also does fairly well on Jupiter but it clearly does what it should do on the moon and it's far better than those moon filters you get with some scopes.
Overall, for about $107.00 with a coupon code, you get a lot with the Zhumell 2" filter kit. It's not perfect, but it does have a lot of bang for the buck...
Posted 11/06/2011 06:41PM #1
Sounds like they are a decent deal, not that much money really.

[SIZE="Large"][/SIZE][COLOR="Blue"][/COLOR] Floyd Blue grin
Amateur Imager
Posted 11/20/2011 02:35AM #2
I ran another check of my 0111 filters under somewhat better conditions without the 3/4 full moon riding high in the sky. Under moderate light pollution with the milky way visible overhead and the seeing varying between 3/5 and 4/5, I found, as expected, that all of the filters did better than in the initial test. The Celestron(baader)filter still gave the best views of the Veil with my 24mm and 30mm ES eyepieces. However, the Orion and Zhumell filters improved the view of these objects as well but not as dramatically so as the Celestron filter. I also felt the Celestron filter gave the most detailed view of M27 in my 10mm Ethos eyepiece but the Orion and Zhumell filters did quite well on this object. The real surprise came as I utilized my ES 14mm 100 AFOV eyepiece on the crescent nebula. In the latter case, the Zhumell filter actually outperformed both the Orion and Celestron filters. I'm not quite sure why but with this particular object in this particular eyepiece, the image was better with the Zhumell filter and the difference wasn't subtle, either. If anybody has any ideas as to why this might be the case, chime in.
My new Lumicon 0111 filter arrived along with a storm front so I'll have to wait for a break in the weather to try it on the aforementioned objects before they disappear from the winter skies. Lumicon doesn't supply a graphic representation of filter performance but, as typical with Lumicon filters, it does provide hand written performance specs. The numbers on my 2" Lumicon 0111 filter are: 496nm 0111 line: 92.6% transmission and for the 501nm 0111 line: 93.7% transmission. I may have an opportunity to test the filter against the others on Monday, if the skies are clear. I also hope to test them under dark sky conditions after Thanksgiving if the weather is decent.