Hydrogen-beta filter in AP - Do you have any thoughts on it?

[swag72]

I have a fatal combination at the moment of a couple of ££'s in my Paypal account and a spare hole in my filter wheel carousel!! So wondering what I can spend my pennies on, I have been looking at the Baader Hydrogen-beta filter. I already have the Ha, OIII and SII set and so wondered what, if any, this Hb filter may bring to the mix.

Does anyone have one? Has anyone any experience of them? A useful couple of ££'s spent or a waste of money?

Would welcome some thoughts on this from you guys

[Spikey]

I got one as part of a set earlier this year Sara. Not used it yet but I'm told its good for the horsehead so I'm saving it for that.

[ollypenrice]

I have one. It's a funny filter because it's blue but generally traces the same gasses as Ha, only much more faintly. Arguably, by putting a dash of Ha in your blue channel, you could get much the same effect. I only used it once, on the Bubble, and it gave me a jazzy colour scheme and found its way into a book (in Dutch) on String Theory!! I've never used it since. I must try in on the Horse, but I think this 'Horse in H Beta' is really a visual thing. WIth a guest's visual H Beta I could sort of see a bit of a notch out of some nebulosity that I could sort of see when I talked myself into it. That was in our 20 inch last month. Inconclusive!!

Olly

[steppenwolf]

The Rosette Nebula reacts well to imaging in Hydrogen Beta as well. Sara, you may find this comparison of interest which uses the following components mapped to R, G and B respectively for a set of NGC7000 images:-

Top Left = OSC RGB

Top Right = Ha/OIII/OIII

Bottom Left = Si/Ha/OIII

Bottom Right = Ha/OIII/Hb

[swag72]

Thanks all for that and the images Steve - Doesn't look like it really adds much that can not be processed in if required.

Will save the money for something else!!!

[Merlin66]

The Hb emission is generally 50% of the Ha. By taking this proportion and allocating it to a blue colour, you'll get exactly the same outcome.