BORG 72FL F4

Tony Hallas sent me his recent result taken by BORG 71FL F4 and ASI6200M. His initial test was to check the star shape through in the full frame sensor.

Looks good! Here is the current 72FL F4 Kasai R&P focuser set .

72FL F4 Kasai R&P

Sightron Japan Filters

Sightron Japan premium filters will be available through Hutech soon. And those filters are also sold through Hutech partners worldwide too.

SJ filters are fully produced at their own factory in Japan. And more filters are expected to come up. Stay tuned.

Player One Filter Lineups

Player One seems to have the aggressive filter roadmap.

• Anti-halo Pro
• Anti-halo
• E-series
• S-series

E-series sounds very interesting. E-series should be the best match with their Uranus-C or Mars-M II cameras since they are relatively more sensitive in UV and NIR than any others. The 1st comer is UVenus.

Current Player One’s lineup is

Player One New Filters

These premium filters are now in stock.

Anti-Halo PRO Dual-Band 2″ Ha+OIII filter

Anti-Halo 2″ UV IR-CUT Filter

I’m so excited about using the dual narrow filter immediately. But I wonder when the sky will be clear.

Anyway, these filters are ready for the shipment now.

Player One Mars-M II

This new camera looks very interesting.

This SONY sensor seems to be relatively higher sensitivities in UV and NIR as shown below.

And the special coating is applied in the the clear window to maximize the transmission in UV. (Probably the light attenuation through the glass might not be considered in this graph though)

The camera seems to be the perfect match with UV filter for the Venus as one of “E-series” filters they are planning to release shortly.

Mars-M II USB3.0 Mono Camera (IMX462)

We missed including the camera in the recent shipment. So most likely it will come in stock middle of next month.

Veil SHO

This is the wide-field Veil. I assigned SII into green channel.

Sigma 105mm at F2.2 + ASI2600MM, IDAS SHO UHS 52mm filters, 10 x 5′ each

What surprised me is the Veil contains a lot of SII signal too. See below.

Ha-left, OIII-upper right, SII-lower right

You can see the response curves and transmission on IDAS SII UHS

IDAS SII Filters

Originally I was planning to capture by BORG 55FL. But I forgot installing FW driver. So I was forced to change the plan. Unfortunately this was only one result. I will re-try next time.

Player One Poseidon-M & 7 x 50 FW

Finally I built up the wide-field setup (BORG 55FL F3.6) along with Poseidon-M and FW for the summer constellation mode. All seem to be properly in balance. The short focal length scope is always challenging in the interference and the weight balance.

IDAS SHO have been set. Fortunately type and specs are engraved. So It easily re-assures for numbering each filter.

And 3mm thick glass is par-focal with other premium brands. I’m shopping around those LRGB filters now.

New IDAS Filter – DTD

DTD-48 is now in stock.

DTD

Sightron Japan StarEnhancer Filter

This is a double-duty filter. A single filter works as enhancing stars while suppressing the sky glow. Furthermore, the biggest advantage is the absorbing type. So there is no restriction for the light angle like the interference type. It means the filter is allowed to set onto any kind of lenses including the wide-angle. So this should be the must-have item for the nightscape photographers.

Features

• Moderate softening effect – the landscape image doesn’t get blur much while enhancing stars
• Available at various sizes – up to 82mm
• No restriction for lenses
• Produced by Sightron’s own factory in Japan

The right image was taken through StarEnhancer. We can see the background turns darker and bright stars get larger. And the landscape isn’t too blur. Looking very good balance of the performance among all aspects.

SGS-C Filter from Sightron Japan

This is another premium quality of filters from Japan. SGS stands for Sky Glow Suppressor. So it is categorized as the broadband filter to fight against the light pollution. Especially good effect to reduce the white LED spectrum. And the filter is also designed to enhance the comet emissions as well. That is “C”.

Features :

• Makes the background darker than any others (in my actual test) under the modern light pollution (=white LED) sky
• Better color balance (See my test shot by ASI2600MC below)
• Good for the blue reflection nebulae like M45 and the Running Man etc.
• Boost the contrast of various comet emissions (see below)
• Made in Japan (produced by their own factory)

The above is the result pointing the scope to the sky over Los Angles basin from my backyard. The sky is totally dominated by the white LED street lights now. So the perfect environment for the testing.

The SGS-C’s background is the darkest and the best color balance among other filters I tested at same time and same conditions. Green is still strong. But this was nothing surprised. Good thing is not to be saturated yet while others are done even at same exposure and RGB is close enough. So easy to adjust. The camera I used was ASI2600MC.

And followings show the comet 2001 Q4 emission lines and each strength, and how SGS-C curves work for the comets.

And this is my 1st shot through SGS-C.

SGS-C 2″ is expected to be available by end of this month and will be sold through Hutech partners worldwide. It’s $199 in US.

More Sightron Japan filters are planed to come up. Keep your eyes opened!!