Filter wheel

[ryanpaul]

Hi all,

I have a set of Meade CCD filters, and am looking to get a filter wheel, to make life a bit easier imaging jupiter.

Can anyone recomens the best option?

Cheers

Paul

[JamesF]

Manual or electronic?

James

[ryanpaul]

Well, a quick look tells me £70 for manual, and about £150 for electric. If this is true, and electrics is far superior then I would go for the electric one. Unless my price quotes are incorrect, or electric Is not as good as I expect it to be.

[JamesF]

For manual SnakeyJ has just posted this:

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/176736-cheap-manual-filter-wheel/

which seems almost obscenely cheap for astro gear.

James

[JamesF]

As regards electronic, "the daddy" seems to be the Atik EFW2, but you may need a second mortgage. I know several people have posted that they're very happy with theirs though I've no idea how their bank managers are taking it. I have the Xagyl filter wheel which seems to work fine, but I've not tested it in anger yet so I can't really offer an opinion. I recall a few people posting that they were happy with the True Tech wheel, too.

There are some of the original Atik EFW wheels around, but some of them may well just be remotely operated rather than computer controlled. I think there was a USB upgrade for them if you wanted full computer control.

James

[jnc71106]

i have just got hold of a original atik efw mainly because i have just bought a mono dmk and the thought of sitting there all night moving my old manual atik wheel didnt fill me with joy plus i can use it with Artemis capture with my atik ccd. mine has the usb upgrade and also a hand controller. i've been putting it through its paces today and im very impressed it hasn't missed a beat and i had it running for nearly 4 hours doing contant filter changes and exposures

of course its all bound to go wrong once i travel to my dark site and can't do anything to fix it

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I got a secondhand manual filter wheel and a secondhand Astrodon LRGB filter set, augmented by a Baader IR-pass filter. They are fine for planetary, I find. Electronic is better of course as it lets you automate stuff, but for me manual is just fine.

[Tris]

Before you buy it may be worth establishing that the width (as opposed to the aperture) of the filters that you have, will fit the wheel that you buy. Some wheels will only accommodate filters which are quite thin rimmed. I got an astro-engineering manual wheel and it is fine. But I had to shim it out a bit as a couple of the filter edges were scraping slightly on the inside of the wheel. (In fairness they were a rather mixed bunch of filters).