Effectiveness of a Baader moon/sky glow filter

[geppetto]

Received a Baader filter from Aunty Flo http://www.firstlightoptics.com/proddetail.php?prod=bneodymium

and decided to do a series of tests to show what it is capable of in my light polluted backyard.

I rigged up an adaptor to fit on the front of my Nikon 5400 camera and decided that the first test should be a 3 minute

tracked exposure with and without the filter with all settings the same for both runs.

Setup the camera at ISO 50 and full optical zoom with whitebalance locked at daylight setting.

Shot the first 3 minute exposure with m45 more or less centre field.

An identical shot was then taken but this time the filter was screwed into the adaptor.

As with all good plans, during the second shot, some high cloud drifted over so I will have to repeat the test if it clears.

Anyway, I decided to post the results and it's looking rather good.

Nothing has been done to these images bar cropping, reducing in size and pasting one next to the other.

As you can see there is a huge reduction in the orange light accumulated in 3 minutes.

Have ideas for more tests and a repeat of this one and will report as I get results.

[geppetto]

Out of interest I took a with/without shot in daylight to show the

filters effects.

[richard42]

looking good that is a massive difference, and should not make much difference to exposure times, i inverted the image and nearly all the faint stars in the first is visible in the second and some of the loss might be to the cloud you mentioned.

can't wait for more tests

[FLO]

Good report Phil

[SteelRat]

Yup. And what a difference! BIG results for SMALL price. £18!!! 8)

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Great report Phil!

This filter has reinvigorated my DSLR antics sufficiently that I'm going to have another go with the Nikon within the next year (when the wind has died down and the ark that I've built comes to rest on an arrowroot biscuit).

Joking aside, the DSLR results that I got from one windy test session have convinced me that it can make the difference between getting useable shots and the close-ups of the Forth bridge (its red, most of the time, for those of you not familiar with it) that I was used to getting with camera lenses and no filters. I can now look forward to snapping away at the faint fuzzies with expectations of real results through the 'scope, even though I have appaling local light pollution.

I'd have posted before and after snaps as well, but the wind, the bleddy wind!

I've not tried it visually BTW, as I don't do that sort of thing.

Captain Chaos

[geppetto]

Filter has an interesting effect on daylight blue sky.

I reckon it should help when viewing/imaging the moon in daylight

[geppetto]

Had chance tonight to give the Baader filter another try but this time

at a 5 minute exposure.

Nikon 5400 carried by my barn door tracker.

The sky was very moonlit but the filter nicely stopped most of the horrible

orange glow. Surprisingly, it still allowed some faint fuzzies in Auriga to show through.