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H-a 3nm (2)
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NII 3nm (1)
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OIII 3nm (1)
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SII 3nm (1)
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Astrodon 3 nm Narrowband Filters – H-α 3nm
$564.00 – $2,495.00You may click the “Get an alert” button to be notified when an out of stock filter is back in stock. It is necessary to pay for back-ordered filters immediately to reserve your spot in our wait list. Often we have more orders for out of stock filters than we have incoming filters. Many Astrodon filters are perpetually out of stock for this reason.
H-α (hydrogen-alpha) at 656 nm (nanometers) is deep red in color and the most popular narrowband filter. Hydrogen is ubiquitous in the cosmos and is present in emission nebula (North American, Pelican), planetary nebula (Dumbbell, Ring), Wolf-Rayet objects (Crescent, Thor’s Helmet) and supernova remnants (Veil). Many imagers like to present just a black-and-white H-α image of an object. It is has a beauty all by itself, like an Ansel Adams photo. However, most imagers blend their H-α data into their red RGB data to enhance structural detail while maintaining a “natural” look. Therefore, the H-α filter should be your first narrowband addition to your LRGB filters. The basic imaging set of 5 filters becomes LRGBH-α.
Astrodon H-α filters have a center bandwidth of 656.3 nm
Astrodon 3 nm Narrowband Filters – H-α 3nmMarch 6, 2018 -
Astrodon 3 nm Narrowband Filters – OIII 3nm
$564.00 – $2,495.00You may click the “Get an alert” button to be notified when an out of stock filter is back in stock. It is necessary to pay for back-ordered filters immediately to reserve your spot in our wait list. Often we have more orders for out of stock filters than we have incoming filters. Many Astrodon filters are perpetually out of stock for this reason.
The next filter to complement your LRGBH-a set is an oxygen filter. OIII (“ohthree”) emits light near 500 nm and is a blue-green- or teal-colored filter. Many of my images of planetary nebula and supernova remnants are taken only with H-a and OIII filters. They show great structural detail, but have natural colors, looking like an RGB image.
Astrodon OIII filters have a center bandwidth of 500.1 nm.
Astrodon 3 nm Narrowband Filters – OIII 3nmMarch 6, 2018 -
Astrodon 3 nm Narrowband Filters – SII 3nm
$564.00 – $2,495.00Please call or email before back-ordering Astrodon filters so that we can let you know what the wait will be.
Back-ordered filters usually ship within 3-6 weeks but sometimes longer.
You may click the “Get an alert” button to be notified when an out of stock filter is back in stock. It is necessary to pay for back-ordered filters immediately to reserve your spot in our wait list. Often we have more orders for out of stock filters than we have incoming filters. Many Astrodon filters are perpetually out of stock for this reason.
If you want the look of Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images, such as the famous “Pillars of Creation” (the Eagle Nebula, Messier 16), then the next filter to consider adding to your collection after H-a and OIII is the SII (es-two) or sulfur filter. The SII filter, like H-a, is a deep red filter near 672 nm. H-a, OIII and SII filters provide that Hubble look for many emission nebula. Again, tri-color narrowband imaging with these three filters can be done with the moon up, so your equipment is not sitting dormant for several weeks.
Astrodon SII filters have a center bandwidth of 671.6nm
Astrodon 3 nm Narrowband Filters – SII 3nmMarch 6, 2018 -
Astrodon 3 nm Narrowband Filters – NII 3nm
$564.00 – $1,438.00Filters in stock ship usually ship within 3 weeks.
You may click the “Get an alert” button to be notified when an out of stock filter is back in stock. It is necessary to pay for back-ordered filters immediately to reserve your spot in our wait list. Often we have more orders for out of stock filters than we have incoming filters. Many Astrodon filters are perpetually out of stock for this reason.
NII Filter, 3nm, center bandwidth 658.4 nm
What about NII and H-a?
This is a bit complicated. It is not well known that most H-a filters pass both H-a and NII. H-a emits at 656.3 nm and NII emits most strongly at 658.4 nm (and weakly at 653.8 nm). These are very close together spectrally. Thus, most H-a filters are wide enough (e.g. 4.5 nm bandwidth and wider) to pass both emission lines as shown for the older Astrodon 6 nm filter above. Our 3 nm H-a begins to separate both emission lines and reduces the NII contribution significantly. In this example the 3nm filter only transmits 15% at the NII 658.4 nm wavelength, whereas the H-a remains unchanged. As mentioned earlier, some objects are enriched in NII, such as planetary nebula and Wolf-Rayet bubbles. The Dumbbell Nebula, M27, is a good example. The wispy clouds in the core of M27 are dominantly NII. A tricolor narrowband image is also shown below, mapping OIII to blue, H-a to green and NII to red to produce a beautiful color image. This information provides you with a choice based upon your light pollution, desire for more detail, or simply wanting all the photons you can get out
of your H-a filter.Our NII filters have a center bandwidth of 658.4 nm.
Astrodon 3 nm Narrowband Filters – NII 3nmMarch 6, 2018
