Baader 610nm longpass filter

[Moonshane]

I have just sold some books so thought I'd treat myself to one of these filters. I have wanted one for a while to see if it provides sharper detail on the moon and easier splits on things like Sirius when seeing is poor.It may go nowhere but will be interesting to see what it's like.

They seem quite uncommon used so I should be able to sell for not too much loss if it turns out to be less effective than I hoped. There does not seem to be much about them online for visual although some planetary imagers use them to cut through bad seeing.

I'll report back when it arrives but I suspect it's not in stock where I bought it so might be a week or two before it comes.

Cheers

Shane

[John]

Thats a new one on me Shane so I'll be interested to see what difference it makes 

[Moonshane]

Indeed John. Might be a white elephant but I'll certainly give it a chance.

[RikM]

A red filter certainly makes a difference to sharpness when imaging the moon and if there is enough light (bright object) you won't have the same limitation as trying to 'see' H-alpha in DSO's with a dark adapted eye. I can see the logic in it. 

[Moonshane]

it arrived today and my first impressions are that I have made a mistake. I looked through the scope at a decent magnification and could hardly see anything. I turned to Capella and even this was not the shining beacon it normally is. I took it out and looked with naked eye and only magnitude 1 or brighter stars were immediately obvious although the glow of the moon was showing above the houses. in fact I compared the light levels passing through the filter with naked eye and the Hbeta filter I have and the Hbeta looked positively bright by comparison (albeit green in tinge). I think this is an indication as to why the red filter reveals little in the way of stars. red light is perhaps less usable by our eyes than green light (certainly I find reading a star map easier with a green torch than a red torch).it

 will be interesting to see the moon / Mars with the filter and if it means I can split Sirius, get improved detail on the moon (not that it's bad currently of course) and Mars then maybe it's worth it. but I suspect I'll be selling this one on and maybe getting a good quality (perhaps Lumicon) red filter instead.

[spaceboy]

What ever came of this filter Shane ??

[Moonshane]

to be honest it's still sat in my filters/finders box. I put a couple of small scratches in the coatings trying to clean off a grease spot when it arrived and was so brassed off I put it away and have not really used / tried it since. it's still usable though and I may well try it again with the big dob at some point.

[spaceboy]

Is it not a Baader filter? I didn't think you could put scratches in to the coatings on them. If anything my guess they would only be surface swirls. Can't be as bad as the amount of floaters I counted in my left eye blocking the view to observing Jupiter the other week  .

[Moonshane]

yeah it's a Baader but definitely scratches. I have looked with a hand lens.

Not visible when in use to be fair.

Not a big deal. could not even sell it for a tenner so kept it!