I was up at the airport with several club members Saturday night and we lucked out with the best clear skies of the year.

I enjoyed views of the crescent moon slowly sinking in the west, while Saturn rose into good position. I shot a few frames with the DSLR and wondered how many moons I could pick up with the camera.

I also got a chance to compare my budget minded Celestron UHC Filter 2" with my Neil's 2" Lumicon UHC. The Lumicon sells for $200 while the Celestron is $100 so wondered just how useful it would be.

We settled on M27 the Dumbell as a good test subject and we were able to easily 'A' 'B' them by holding them against my 2" Celestron Ultima LX 32mm eyepiece.

The Dumbell Nebula was very visible without a filter but the sky was noticabely light. We tried the Lumicon first. M27 was definately fuller - just more nebula round the outside. The sky was much darker with field stars dimming to about half their magnitude.

Then the Celestron UHC (also billed as a Light Pollution Reduction filter). The sky was brighter than with the Lumicon, but M27 was still better then without.

We tried to find the Veil but unfiltered I just could not see it. With the Lumicon, The Witches Broom section was faintly visible appearing as a faint smoke trail. I switched to The Celestron, but could not see any sign of it. OIII is certainly the filter of choice for The Veil, and previously I had been blown away by the effect of an Orion OIII on The Veil. The sky was not as dark tonight and the UHC certainly was much less effective under these conditions.

So thinking it over - I think $100 is just about worth the price to see the improvement I did on M27. I need to look at more objects with the filter to decide how much of an all rounder it is. If I could source Lumicon's (OIII and UHC) at $150 I would buy them instead. But at $100 I think this Celestron version (comes in a Baader case) is good value if your budget is constrained.