Perhaps the best hobby ever.

[Naemeth]

I found that at a dark site, and with very well adapted eyes, the OIII was better than UHC-S in the 106mm on the Veil.

I think that it is forgotten sometimes that any filter dims the view, but increases contrast, so dark adaptation is, if anything, more important with filters to get the best results. Using an OIII with a small aperture in an urban environment where you cannot get dark adapted doesn't produce great results in my experience.

Stu

Fortunately, I do believe my eyes can get dark adapted here. It is quite near to the city centre here, but fortunately there are no street lights which shine into my eyes. Given 30 minutes of time to properly adapt, the 32mm TV plossl (6.8mm exit pupil) gets the dark background it should for me, with no shadow in the middle .

Which O-III should I go for, Astronomik?

[swamp thing]

Jonathan. For me it would depend how much you are going to use it.

The Astronomik, or Lumicon premium filters are very good indeed, but some of the budget versions will work very close to them. Its mainly the star images that are sharper through the premium ones. They also give slightly better view as the quality of glass is better, but its not night and day.

If its an occasional use type thing. I would go with a cheaper one. If you wanna do a lot of nebula observing go with an Astronomik.

[Naemeth]

Jonathan. For me it would depend how much you are going to use it.

The Astronomik, or Lumicon premium filters are very good indeed, but some of the budget versions will work very close to them. Its mainly the star images that are sharper through the premium ones. They also give slightly better view as the quality of glass is better, but its not night and day.

If its an occasional use type thing. I would go with a cheaper one. If you wanna do a lot of nebula observing go with an Astronomik.

That has answered my question nicely . To me, there is no point in spending all that money on premium (TeleVue and LV) eyepieces (and by now, it's actually quite a lot) and putting something that will slightly spoil the view. I like how my stars look at the moment (although they may look even better through a frac ) so I would probably go for the Astronomik.

€99 doesn't seem too bad for premium quality .

I should add that I'm more likely to get this either at the end of this month, or even next month. I have to decide the order of priority for eyepieces / new scope / filters, and can't get them all at once .