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Light Pollution Filters

bennylee79

By bennylee79
in Discussions - Eyepieces

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CC_Japan

CC_Japan

Posted
Posted

I'm using an IDAS (Hutech) LPS-P2 filter for widefield with my Sony Alpha DSLR and camera lenses. Due to time constraints and bad weather, it hasn't seen as much use as it should have, but so far I like it. It's not cheap (around 30,000 yen or 300 USD), but from the limited experience I've had with it, it does its job.

However, needless to say, a lot will depend on where you want to us it. If you are living in a major city like me, the filter won't be able to cancel out all the insane amounts of light pollution. However, under less extreme conditions, it should work quite well.

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Mattscar

Mattscar

Posted
Posted

Hi Benny

I have the skywatcher LP filter myself. The most useful Iv found it so far is for viewing the moon. I didn't realise how orange it looked untill I put in the filter and it cleared it right up, now I don't like observing the moon without it. This is however all subjective and depends on what you want to observe and your location. If your trying to bring out more detail in a tiny nebula from a dark sky site its not the filter for you, however if your in a town and have LP all around you then Id say its worth a look at certainly :)

Matt

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ronin

ronin

Posted
Posted

No simple answer these days.

The LP filter is designed to take out the yellow sodium spectral lines - that nice yellow glow. That is fairly easy as the 2 lines are close together and narrow. So "works" fairly well if you are surrounded by a predominance of sodium lights.

If there are a good collection of "White" lights then the "white" light will still get through, so an LP filter is limited in it's applicability. White lights being most security lights, car park illumination and now the LED road lights.

Unfortunately as we seem to be moving more and more to white LED lights LP filters are getting less applicable. So are they effective? It all depends.

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JG777

JG777

Posted
Posted

I have the SW LP filter and it works well if I view from home where LP is more of a problem, but out at the dark site it is less effective and for me takes something away from the view. As said there are many variables here.

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rwilkey

rwilkey

Posted
Posted

Hi Benny, I would suggest the Baader Neodymium Moon and Skyglow filter as the best one for your purposes, especially as you are quite a way from the city lights, the Baader darkens the sky better and has other uses besides, such as for reducing the glare of the Moon.

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Pig

Pig

Posted
Posted

I have a Lumicon narrowband 1.25 filter and if I am honest I wasn't over impressed with it when I used it on my previous 6SE SCT.

However, when I got my 925 SCT the filter came into its own and it works very well on Nebulae :laugh:

Thus in my experience I found it worked better with the bigger aperture SCT' but I don't know how they perform on refractors etc....as I have never owned any :smiley:

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hoops86

hoops86

Posted
Posted

i bought a cheapo "moon and sky glow" filter for around £12. I have pretty bad light pollution in my garden so i thought it might come in handy.

To be honest wasnt impressed with it. More hastle than its worth changing it about. And i did a comparison on M13, M92 and M57 the other night. All 3 looked better without a filter haha.

I guess i need to invest more than 12 quid to see any noticable difference :)

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Stargazer_00

Stargazer_00

Posted
Posted

Put a light pollution filter over your eye and then look with both eyes are the light polluted area and you'll see it at its most effective. It does work (to my eyes). It turns orange haze into a softer blue haze. The more you increase the magnification the lesser the effect. So at 1x it's good, at 30x its definitely working, at 60x its a bit 'meh' and from 70-80x upwards you probably shouldn't bother. That's my general experience anyway.

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hoops86

hoops86

Posted
Posted

that makes a lot of sense Graham! as you say... putting it over my eye makes a clear difference. But when used with my eyepiece that gives 76x its not very noticable at all.

I have a question about the Baader Neodymium filter that you guys mentioned - http://www.firstlightoptics.com/light-pollution-reduction/baader-neodymium-filter.html

Looks like a multi purpose filter. Sounds a little kebab shop'ish 3in1... Any ideas how this performs? mainly concerning the uv/ir aspect of the filter. I was going to get just the baader uv/ir one to use with my camera but i guess if this performs just as good it would be the better option?

Cheers

Chris

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Stargazer_00

Stargazer_00

Posted
Posted

The Neodynium is purported to be a multi purpose filter offering moon & sky glow reduction and boost in contrast on planets.

Personally I'll never use a filter on the moon, I love the pure white views and dont want to see it tinted to reduce the brightness. I actually prefer it bright as I find it allows better contrast with the shaded features.

In terms of Sky Glow, well I bought the 1.25" version like a prat (didn't have 2" eyepieces at the time and) and now all my eyepieces that would get any benefit from it are 2" so it's only use for me is planetary contrast boost at high mags. It does sort of work on Jupiter/Saturn but I find Jupiter and Saturn stand up well without it too and are a more natual colour.

I'm waiting for Mars to come around and if it doesn't help much on Mars I'll probably sell it on. I think filters work better for some people than others...

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TwoPi

TwoPi

Posted
Posted

I have a question about the Baader Neodymium filter that you guys mentioned - http://www.firstlightoptics.com/light-pollution-reduction/baader-neodymium-filter.html

Looks like a multi purpose filter. Sounds a little kebab shop'ish 3in1... Any ideas how this performs? mainly concerning the uv/ir aspect of the filter. I was going to get just the baader uv/ir one to use with my camera but i guess if this performs just as good it would be the better option?

Hi Chris,

Not used either personally, but you can see the respective transmission curves of the Baader UV/IR filter here and the Neodynium here.

Looks to me like the Neodynium doesn't do a great job of filtering IR (but it does filter some wavelengths). Unfortunately the graphs don't go down to UV wavelengths, so can't say in that respect.

PS: Hope the links take you to the correct graphs - for some reason the links in the page seem to take me to graph after the one I'm interested in - using IE10 so apologies if it's just my stupid browser. The links should get you somewhere close anyway :)

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Russe

Russe

Posted
Posted

Which LP filter do I want for my Canon 450D? I'm confused...

Clip-Filter system for Canon EOS cameras

Clip-Filter (EOS) with ASTRONOMIK L (UV+IR Block filter)

excl. VAT (Non-EU): €74.79

incl. VAT (EU): €89.00

Excl. shipping

Add to Cart

Clip-Filter (EOS) with ASTRONOMIK MC-Clear

excl. VAT (Non-EU): €57.98

incl. VAT (EU): €69.00

Excl. shipping

Add to Cart

Clip-Filter (EOS) with ASTRONOMIK CLS

excl. VAT (Non-EU): €108.40

incl. VAT (EU): €129.00

Excl. shipping

Add to Cart

Clip-Filter (EOS) with ASTRONOMIK CLS-CCD

excl. VAT (Non-EU): €133.61

incl. VAT (EU): €159.00

Excl. shipping

Add to Cart

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