BAADER CONTRAST BOOSTER - The best all round planetary filter?

[johninderby]

I found I prefered the neodymium on Mars, Jupiter etc. I do wonder if different peoples sensitivity to light and colour might partly explain why some prefer one or the other? 🤔 

Will have to get hold of another contrast booster filter and do a new comparison. 🙂

Edited September 20, 2020 by johninderby

[paulastro]

Neodymium now ordered from FLO 😃.

[markse68]

51 minutes ago, paulastro said:

Neodymium now ordered from FLO 😃.

Great! waiting with bated breath for your comparison results Paul! 

[Franklin]

I like the Neodymium as an all rounder, not tried the Contrast Booster yet but I sometimes stack a Minus violet (VR-1) with the moon & skyglow for nice views of the Moon through my achro. 

[paulastro]

I actually compared the Contrast Booster and the Neodymium last night for the first time on Mars.  Unfortunately the seeing was poor most of the time and this made the comparison more difficult.

I did tentatively come to some initial thoughts, but I wont say anything yet until I've some more time with them under my belt - I'll then post a full report.  The weather doesn't look good up here for  next week, but I expect the week I'm spending at Kelling will enable me to post something meaningful when I'm back home.

 

[paulastro]

Here's a link to Bill Paolini's review of filters for planetary and lunar purposes posted here on SGL a few days ago.

I won't spoil it and tell you his findings, but it's VERY interesting for anyone considering purchasing a Baader Contrast Booster!   😀

[paulastro]

Oops, forgot the link!

 

 

[Peter Drew]

I'm fortunate to have a 16" SCT with a SW 150ED piggybacked on it so I am able to easily get a comparison.  The biggest difference to me is the brightness of Mars as seen in both telescopes at 240x, the ED image was crisp and contrasty, I would say "refractor like"  🙂 but significantly  dimmer due to the smaller exit pupil, about near the bottom of the brightness level that is comfortable to my current eyesight.  The image in the SCT, if anything, was too bright at 240x, unfortunately the seeing conditions didn't permit higher magnification to address this.  I have a polarising filter somewhere which might help.  I have tried all the common colour filters and for me, in the main, they produce a different colour Mars, I prefer the natural colour.  An ADC filter has proved useful when Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are low but less so when Mars is above 30 degrees.  In conclusion, I am happy to forego ultimate detail visibility in favour of a natural looking image.

[Stardaze]

I’ve ordered a contrast booster today to see what it has to offer..

[paulastro]

Well done Stardaze, I hope you enjoy it. 

[Fozzie]

That's a really interesting review, I'd missed it posted before so thanks for 're pointing it out.. one thing that seems to be a recurring theme is stacking of filters.  My two current visual sky glow and enhancement are the semi apo and neodymium.. I use the semi apo on the moon alot and find it reduces colour fringing, but doesn't really add to contrast, the tone is quite neutral.. the neodymium is similar, doesn't impact CA at all, but I've found it helps bring out banding on Jupiter..  my biggest surprise and success was stacking them on mars.. totally a magic bullet, before with just the neodymium it was a mess of boiling colour, a mixture of atmospheric and chromatic joy, the stacked filter cut through unbelievably well..

I wonder if top end optics could show less of an impact on these types of filters, I suspect things like CA that are well controlled before might not present such an obvious improvement..  if that makes sense..

Be interesting to stack the neodymium and contrast booster if you get chance... maybe if there's a semi apo at kelling give that a try too...

[globular]

48 minutes ago, Peter Drew said:

In conclusion, I am happy to forego ultimate detail visibility in favour of a natural looking image.

I love that we're all different.  I am happy to forego natural looking images in favour of teasing out ultimate detail visibility.

In my recent studies of Mars I've taken to starting and ending a session without any filters to take in and appreciate the natural look.  Then I add filters to tease out details. Sometimes these details remain in the final non-filtered viewing but don't seem to appear without first seeing them with the help of a filter or two.  I'm still new to all this and maybe when I have a more experienced eye I will rely less on filters.  Until then I'm enjoying the extra detail they seem to provide me.

Edited September 30, 2020 by globular

[Fozzie]

When I'm imaging with the DSLR, on the moon, I sometimes use a solar continuum filter, before converting to monochrome, the contrast is great, allows good focusing! Bit odd visually mind... 

[globular]

58 minutes ago, Fozzie said:

When I'm imaging with the DSLR, on the moon, I sometimes use a solar continuum filter, before converting to monochrome, the contrast is great, allows good focusing! Bit odd visually mind... 

I’ve gone from liking your post but dismissing it as imaging only
to googling it to find out more just out of interest
to wanting one immediately. 😟

[Stu]

On 19/09/2020 at 20:15, globular said:

Most planetary visual filters only work effectively with exit pupils 2mm or larger. 
Typical / good conditions support planetary magnification of around 250-300x.
So if you have a scope and an eyepiece than can give 300x and 2.5mm exit pupil then filters might add something noticeable.
But, if you're more typical, you'll likely have an exit pupil much smaller than this when viewing the planets and the range of filters that make a worthwhile difference is reduced; and the effect of those filters is less obvious.
It then becomes a personal things as to whether these more marginal impacts are worth it for you.

Somewhere towards the end of the first post in this thread, I think I reach that conclusion through experimenting whilst observing Mars. I’ve always found the neodymium filter to give a useful contrast boost, particularly on Mars and Jupiter, but when I was over x300 in the 8”, there was definitely more detail visible without the filter.

 

[Barry-W-Fenner]

I have had my BNF for a couple of weeks now, The weather has been so poor I have only had the chance to use it for a brief period on Jupiter. To my eye it did bring out the banding across the planet slightly more, I also liked the fact that it kept the image natural. I havent had chance to try it on Mars yet. Hopefully we all get some clear sky soon!!

Out of interest, Has anyone tried a BNF on Venus? Does it take away the glare and help show the phases? I assume it will help as you can use this filter as a Moon filter.

 

Cheers

 

Baz

[Fozzie]

9 hours ago, globular said:

I’ve gone from liking your post but dismissing it as imaging only
to googling it to find out more just out of interest
to wanting one immediately. 😟

it's interesting actually (well maybe) in the Book "shoot the moon" it mentioned that achro refractors are better tuned in green wavelengths as this suits our vision, so the sharpest layer should be the G from RGB..  this got me thinking, a green filter, providing high contrast might enable me to focus more accurately hence a sharper image.

I'll post the page section, if I remember, later on..

one thing at the time i remember was, having just been to the optician, is the old red/black green/black comparison they do..  green and black seems to give good contrast, hence why i gave the continuum a try both visually and on monochrome..    

[globular]

36 minutes ago, Fozzie said:

this got me thinking, a green filter, providing high contrast might enable me to focus more accurately hence a sharper image.

I tried a 500nm Green bandpass (W58) on Mars the other night (I tried everything as a bit of an experiment). The south pole was much sharper - maybe because I found it easier to focus more accurately? The dark Martian features were less visible with this filter but the brighter areas (of which there were a couple of significant ones that night) seemed to become more apparent.

[jonathan]

I was out last night with a cracking view of Mars through my recently collimated, cleaned, and flocked 8SE, even did a little sketch, but that little bit I read in Astronomy Now about trying some Wratten coloured filters niggled at me... could I see even more detail / contrast?  Can my old faithful 8SE be made even better?  So here I am in this thread, with a Baader 1.25" Contrast Booster and a 2" Baader Neodynium Filter in my FLO basket (the 2" Neodynium can sit on my diagonal, indeed I might just leave it there all of the time if it helps on everything).

My question really, if there is an answer, is will these two filters, either individually or stacked (in the correct order - will it matter if one is on my diagonal and the other on the eyepiece?) make a worthwhile difference in my 8SE?  Mars was shining so brightly last night that I started using my moon filter on it to cut down the dazzle, it helped and seemed to 'enable' more detail, much like it does for the moon but to a lesser degree.  I'm certainly keen to spend the money if it will help when viewing the bright and detailed planets, nebula, and other things.

PS FWIW I've recently viewed Mars through a 12" SCT with 12mm eyepiece, to me the views I got last night were the same through my 8SE with Baader Zoom Eyepiece (at 8mm) or possibly slightly better (seeing conditions may have affected this, very difficult to tell).  It's interesting to note that my Celestron X-Cel 10mm wouldn't touch Mars last night, just couldn't focus, so +1 for the Baader Zoom Eyepiece when used with the 8SE.  The main thing with that 12" SCT is that the optical surfaces are filthy, it needs a serious clean but it's not mine to clean, I expect once it's clean it should be able to outperform my 8SE on a similar target and seeing conditions.

Edited October 2, 2020 by jonathan

[messier 111]

On 26/09/2020 at 09:15, paulastro said:

I actually compared the Contrast Booster and the Neodymium last night for the first time on Mars.  Unfortunately the seeing was poor most of the time and this made the comparison more difficult.

I did tentatively come to some initial thoughts, but I wont say anything yet until I've some more time with them under my belt - I'll then post a full report.  The weather doesn't look good up here for  next week, but I expect the week I'm spending at Kelling will enable me to post something meaningful when I'm back home.

 

and then, how do the filters behave?