OIII FILTERS

[BargeGazer]

Which OIII filters are recommended. Primarily on an 80mm Explore Scientific 80 triplet but also on a 127Mak. I know the benefits / limitations but would like a bit of advice on which manufacture offers best bang for the back.

Thanks

David

[faulksy]

lumicon is the best of the best, followed my astronomic . with your 127 am i right in thinking you can only use 1.25 eps, and i imagine 2" on your es. you need to consider what size eps your going to stick with as they are quite expensive

[jetstream]

Hey Mike, if we take the NA neb and the Veil off the table would the Lumi still best the Astronomik?!   Oh, wait, I forgot I'm using them in a little scope...  

[mikeDnight]

Lumicon is the best as already stated, but you should be aware that it will wipe out all but the very brightest stars in such a small aperture scope. A UHC filter may be more appropriate as it doesn't eradicate the stars to the same exten and it has a greater range of usefulness, showing many more nebulae in a small scope than the 03. I'm speaking only from a visual observers point of view as things may be different if you're imaging using an 03, an experienced imager would be able to advise you there.

Mike

[John]

Having until recently used them both for a while I'd say that the Astronomik O-III would work a bit better with 127mm and 80mm aperture scopes than the Lumicon does. They are both great filters but the band pass width of the Astronomik is a little wider than the Lumicon and it does not reduce the brightness of the background stars to the extent that the Lumicon does.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I bought myself a cheap O-III from APM, and find it is less useful on the North America Nebula in my 80mm than a UHC. It does better on some planetaries, but I do tend to use the UHC more than the O-III in the 80mm. The 8" SCT is a slightly different matter. Would love to compare the cheap O-III to a better one, of course

[alan potts]

I have an Astronomik OIII filter and I stuggle to understand how anything could be better but do not have the Lumicon to compare. I now have a Lumicon Deep Sky Filter and I have just used it on the Orion Nebula, it is a good job I have a chair in the observatory as I needed to sit down, never seen it so big.

I think if it were not for the fact they are 275Euros each I would buy a few more of them, maybe little by little. I think a H Beta is next for the 18 inch and the horses head.

Alan

[deepskyohara]

David,

I'm new to Stargazer's Lounge, but not new to the hobby.  I agree that the Lumicon OIII is  a great choice, I have them both in 1.25 and 2" format and have used them in scopes as small as 80 mm.  For what it's worth, in his book StarWare, Phil Harrington liked the Meade 908x OIII slightly better than the competition.  However, you'd have to find one used as I believe they are out of production. 

[Special K]

I've recently put the Astronomik O-III on my ED80 and can vouch it's an effective combination. If you can budget for it, then it's a fine filter to have. I think the Lumicon is roughly the same price but consider how much you want to see background stars, as mentioned above. I got the 2" and screw it on to the star diagonal whether I'm using 2 or 1.25" EPs.

My O-III has become my LPR filter of choice!

[catburglar]

i've never tried the Astronomic filter, but have used a lumicon OIII- I think the band pass must be very narrow so it dims the view too much in my 6 inch SCT. By comparison, I've used a Castelli filter (purchased from 365astromy.com) on 80mm and 120mm refractors and it was really good - sorry I sold it to be honest.

[John]

For a long while I've highly rated the Astronomik O-III and used it as my only deep sky object filter. I've recently acquired a Lumicon O-III and a DGO NBP filter and after comparing the Lumicon with the Astronomik decided that, as a pairing, the Lumicon / DGM NBP would be a little more flexible with my scopes. The Lumicon did darken the background stars a little more than the Astronomik but that was just as I expected having compared their band width pass charts.