Lacerta Brewster-angle 2" Herschel Wedge - First Light
My new Herschel wedge arrived the other day and got it set-up with my Orion 120mm f/5 frac.
Impressed with the sheer quality of the wedge. Very, very solidly made and has the feel of a big hefty piece of industrial equipment. This wedge has a Brewster angle of 56.6 degress instead of the standard 90 degree angle. This allows for better polarization and gives a wider range of adjustment.
Although this design has an open bottom for better heat dissapation it's not to be confused with the old style Intes wedge that had an open bottom that let a potentialy dangerous beam of light shine out. This is a very dfferent design that doesn't allow any stray light to escape. You can actually look stright up into the open bottom of the wedge with no danger. See the two relevant pics.
The angle of the prism is also adjustable. Mine didn't need adjusting but it's nice to know I could adjust it f I needed to.
Manufacturers blurb:
"Most commercially available Herschel wedges (like INTES, Lunt, Scopium, Baader...) come in a 90-degree variant.
The Lacerta Herschel-wedge features a significant, 56.6-degree angle, so called Brewster-angle that provides a special benefit when compared with other 90-degree Herschel wedges.
This befenit is coming from the fact that nearly 100% of light is polarised under this angle; this means that the Lacerta Herschel wedge offers continuous or even complete dimming with the mandatory ND=3.0 filter and an additional (optional) polarising filter. In reality a dimming range between ND=4.07 and 6.37 or even more can be achieved.
Without the polarising filter the Herschel prism operates at ND 4.07 that is very good for photography. The 90° "traditional" Herschel prisms can achieve ND=4.24 to 5.00."
First Light:
Although there's nothing to be seen worth mentioning at the moment it did show good surface granulation and the image was nice and sharp. I used a Baader Solar Continuum filter and a single polarizing filer. Haven't tried the IR cut filter yet. I used to have a Baader Cool Wedge a while ago and initial impressions are the Lacerta seems to be every bit as good. Also have used a Lunt wedge and would have to say the Lacerta was a bit better.
Conclusions:
A worthy competitor to the Baader Cool Wedge and cheaper as well and has potential advantages over the Baader for photographic use. Does require a fair bit of infocus and I found with the Orion 120mm f/5 focus was just about achieved at full infocus travel with the zoom eyepiece I was using. I have trimmed 20mm off the OTA tube to allow for extra infocus travel which won't be a problem with usng the scope for other that white light solar as the new focuser has 20mm more travel than the stock one.
John