A neutral density or polarizer filter?

The moon is way too bright for me in my 13" scope. This weekend I tried a friend's Lumicon ND 13%. That helped a lot, but I could still drop the light a bit. Looking on the Anacortes web site, I saw variable polarizing filters. So I wonder, should I get a couple of ND filters, or a variable polarizing filter to make the moon more comfortable to view?

A variable polarizer is at least two sheets of glass and four surfaces. Going with the theory that less is best, I would choose a fixed ND filter if I had to use anything at all. 13% is not a whole lot of reduction. Keep in mind that you can always up the magnification to reduce the brightness. Doubling the power cuts the brightness by a factor of 4, way more than 13%.

(my 2 cents worth for free!)

dan

Thanks, everyone for your help. I'll get the variable polarizer.

The advice of several of you to keep lights on made me laugh a bit. That makes complete sense, while going against everything else I'd expect for astronomy.

You can also increase the manification to decrease the brightness, if you like to look at smaller features.