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...
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...