Baader UK Support

Let me introduce myself to the SGL-community. I am Baader Planetarium’s UK-Support representative, and have been asked to provide the following official statement with regard to their new imaging filter performance: “We are very grateful to anyone acquiring a filter or filters from us for stringent real-world testing without bias and also to preserve independence. With imaging results the glass can always be half-full or half-empty, depending which point of view is being applied. For customers with funds that does not stretch to the purchase of CHROMA/ASTRODON filters, the feedback so far is very positive and enthusiastic. It's worthy to note at this point that halos are a result of reflections in the telescope system and not from the filter itself. The moment there are other surfaces near the filter, it is much more likely that light will be reflected from one of those surfaces, creating halos that may not be removable. There are so many combinations of camera (windows), field flatteners, correctors, etc., that it is common for filters to be involved in halo production in some unfortunate cases - but not guilty themselves. To tackle this problem we developed our Reflex-Blocker coatings to minimize halos, even under most adverse conditions concerning auxiliary optics. The goal was to achieve a very significant improvement over the previous models and because the new camera technologies now available made it absolutely necessary. However, it was crucial to maintain the previous (AFFORDABLE) price level as much as possible. At the "CHROMA-pricing" we could produce any quality of filters. In the large environment of affordable filter supply and pricing, our new filters may well set a standard. We are sure that anyone using our new filters will enjoy a huge benefit as the amount of processing that may be required of the brightest imaged stars is rated by testers as "very manageable and acceptable”. For example we ask you to read a german review that appeared only last week on Astronomie.de and from Chris Hendren, Technical Support Manager at Celestron Torrance/CA, who very recently reported: “Recently, I lucked out and had clear skies until at least 2 AM for 3 nights in a row from my Bortle 9 back yard sky in overwhelmingly bright Long Beach, California. That let me test out the new Baader 6.5nm CMOS-optimized high-speed filters with the RASA 8 under very tough conditions. Except for the bright magnitude 2.2 star Sadr (Gamma Cygni) in OIII and a much lesser extent in SII, there were no haloes to be seen on any stars with 5 min exposures at f/2.0. I was able to easily minimize the halo to a level I felt comfortable with in a couple steps in Photoshop. I am extremely happy with this result.” Additional results and feedback will continuously be added to our CMOS Filter Blog and as well as many others from amateurs and industry alike. As most dealers have just started to supply these new filters there are a lot of written reports yet still to come. Overall feedback so far to date is overwhelmingly good and positive. Our experience is that everyone who has used our new filters does indeed confirm a gain in contrast and almost-to-zero reduction of halos - this is a decisive criterion for working under extremely bright city skies. Furthermore, the enormous price difference compared to CHROMA/Astrodon-filters comes into play for the typical budget conscious user. Hence our design considerations, but especially the weighting of price to performance, have been confirmed by customer response and we are very grateful for this. Sincere regards, Baader Planetarium GmbH” Submitted by: Baader Planetarium UK-Support Dr Lee Sproats