Baader Moon & Skyglow Filter

• Selective contrast filter, for all reflector and refractor telescopes
• Filters out specific wavelengths, especially those caused by streetlight and most importantly their scattered light which lightens up the night sky
• Selective blocking retains natural colors intact but with RGB significantly enhanced, resulting in greater color contrasts.
• 95% transmission in the selected spectral range.
• Fits all standard filter threads and can be combined with other filters – e.g. the planeoptically polished Baader planetary color filters. This way, you can see fine details better or combine several images with a monochrome camera to achieve color images.
• The filter is also optimized for Astrophotography due to it‘s full UV/IR-blocking coating. When used with DSLRs, stars will remain much tighter, because the unfocussed UV and IR parts of the spectrum are blocked out.
• Planeoptically polished; can be used in front of a binoviewer or for afocal photography – far away from the focus without loosing sharpness!
• The fine-optical polish and absence of wedge error in the glass ensure perfect sharpness when magnifying more than 200x - while the much cheaper “fire -polished” filter glasses destroy the optical wavefront at high mags
• Neodymium doped optical glass
• Coatings Front/Back: 7-layer hard-BBAR-coating / 27-layered dielectrical UV/IR-cut coating
• Ultra-hard and durable Ion-beam hardened coatings – may be cleaned anytime without fear. Non-aging sealed coating edges.
• Why Baader Planetarium Filters?

The Baader Planetarium Moon & Skyglow (Neodymium) filter brings an entirely unique approach to planetary contrast enhancement and light pollution reduction. Based on earlier research at Carl Zeiss, Baader has developed a filter that uses Neodymium glass which filters out a few specific wavelengths from streetlights as well as skyglow from the Moon. The unique spectral characteristics of Neodymium also boost color contrasts by isolating the Red, Green, and Blue regions (so-called RGB enhancement). The result is a filter that leaves natural colors mostly intact, but significantly enhanced.

Planetary and Lunar views are improved in all scopes, reflectors, refractors (APO or Achro). Jupiter's Great Red Spot and ruddy hues of the bands are noticeably enhanced, and contrast of Martian surface features boosted. The Background sky is darkened, and subtle details improved. The filter's high efficiency preserves image brightness, and many Galaxies, Nebulae and Globular Star Clusters are improved due to the reduction of skyglow from artificial lighting. For a hands-on review of the Moon & Skyglow Filter, visit the accessories review section at www.cloudynights.com.

The high quality of Baader Planetarium filters permits stacking with no image degradation. Achromat owners will find the combination of Moon & Skyglow and the new Fringe Killer filter to be ideal for planetary viewing. The high light throughput and natural coloration will make achromats perform more like an apochromat. An integrated version is also available, the Semi-APO filter.

The Moon & Skyglow is also optimized for imagers, due to its full IR-blocking (See the filter curve on the datasheet included in the link, below).

The filter substrate is a special custom melt of Neodymium doped glass, designed for specific transmission characteristics, and made only for Baader Planetarium. In addition to it's unique spectral characteristics, unlike most filters, the Baader Moon & Skyglow surfaces are optically polished to deliver the best possible image sharpness and contrast.

The images below demonstrate the large contrast improvement on Mars. The image on the left was taken without filtration, while the image on the right was taken through a Moon & Skyglow. The Moon & Skyglow image shows significantly higher contrast and surface features barely visible without the filter. Both images were acquired identically, without any image processing or contrast enhancement, and give a very good idea of the planetary contrast improvement that is seen visually. The Moon & Skyglow never leaves our own telescopes when observing the planets and moon.

Image courtesy of Jeremy Summers. Taken in Nov. 05 with a Meade LXD55 8" SCT and Canon A510 digital camera in video mode
(raw images stacked with Registax, no processing to either image).