I use the Optolong L-Enhance and Altair SiiOiii 6nm.
If I were to do it all over again, I would have gotten the Altair HaOiii + SiiOiii 4nm filters, but I'm happy with what I currently have and neither break the bank.
I have a few Altair filters and they've all worked well for me. They provide spectrographic test results with each filter.
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I image with an ASI533 MC-Pro in Bortle 7 skies.
I have used an Optolong L-Enhance for the past 5 years with great success. I have really enjoyed using the L-Enhance and have gotten really nice results with it.
It is not the tightest bandpass filter out there by a longshot, but it just works and works well. Also, the price will not put you in the poorhouse. Yes, I have run into halos on very bright stars, but these mostly can be processed out.
Just a few months ago, I jumped to a much tighter bandpass filter. I bought a new Antila 3 nm Ha and OIII 2" filter.
The Antila required some experimentation on autofocus times and mainly plate solving exposure times, but once it was sorted, the filter performed very well.
You will see many examples of the L-Enhance in my Astrobin. The last two nebula images were caught with the Antila (The Owl Nebula and The Headphone Nebula).
I used alternate palletes on many on the L-Enhance images and some straight up. The two images that I shot with the Antila are basically right out of the camera (color calibration-SPCC) with only minor saturation and tonal changes.
To easily get started with a duo-band filter, it would be very hard to beat the L-Enhance. I do nothing different whenever I image with a uv/ir cut/lp filter, or L-Enhance. The Antila 3nm is a tiny bit more tricky, but so far has given dazzling results.
Good Luck Clayton!
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Jim Raskett:
I image with an ASI533 MC-Pro in Bortle 7 skies.
I have used an Optolong L-Enhance for the past 5 years with great success. I have really enjoyed using the L-Enhance and have gotten really nice results with it.
It is not the tightest bandpass filter out there by a longshot, but it just works and works well. Also, the price will not put you in the poorhouse. Yes, I have run into halos on very bright stars, but these mostly can be processed out.
Just a few months ago, I jumped to a much tighter bandpass filter. I bought a new Antila 3 nm Ha and OIII 2" filter.
The Antila required some experimentation on autofocus times and mainly plate solving exposure times, but once it was sorted, the filter performed very well.
You will see many examples of the L-Enhance in my Astrobin. The last two nebula images were caught with the Antila (The Owl Nebula and The Headphone Nebula).
I used alternate palletes on many on the L-Enhance images and some straight up. The two images that I shot with the Antila are basically right out of the camera (color calibration-SPCC) with only minor saturation and tonal changes.
To easily get started with a duo-band filter, it would be very hard to beat the L-Enhance. I do nothing different whenever I image with a uv/ir cut/lp filter, or L-Enhance. The Antila 3nm is a tiny bit more tricky, but so far has given dazzling results.
Good Luck Clayton! What kind of nuances did you discover trying to use the Antilia? Thanks for sharing your experience, it's super helpful
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Clayton Ostler:
Jim Raskett:
I image with an ASI533 MC-Pro in Bortle 7 skies.
I have used an Optolong L-Enhance for the past 5 years with great success. I have really enjoyed using the L-Enhance and have gotten really nice results with it.
It is not the tightest bandpass filter out there by a longshot, but it just works and works well. Also, the price will not put you in the poorhouse. Yes, I have run into halos on very bright stars, but these mostly can be processed out.
Just a few months ago, I jumped to a much tighter bandpass filter. I bought a new Antila 3 nm Ha and OIII 2" filter.
The Antila required some experimentation on autofocus times and mainly plate solving exposure times, but once it was sorted, the filter performed very well.
You will see many examples of the L-Enhance in my Astrobin. The last two nebula images were caught with the Antila (The Owl Nebula and The Headphone Nebula).
I used alternate palletes on many on the L-Enhance images and some straight up. The two images that I shot with the Antila are basically right out of the camera (color calibration-SPCC) with only minor saturation and tonal changes.
To easily get started with a duo-band filter, it would be very hard to beat the L-Enhance. I do nothing different whenever I image with a uv/ir cut/lp filter, or L-Enhance. The Antila 3nm is a tiny bit more tricky, but so far has given dazzling results.
Good Luck Clayton!
What kind of nuances did you discover trying to use the Antilia? Thanks for sharing your experience, it's super helpful I just had to tailor (increase exposure times for both autofocus and plate solving. I am talking about a change of exposure settings for plate solving from 3 seconds exposure to 10 seconds exposure. Nothing bad or not expected especially with a 3nm bandpass which is tiny. When imaging with the L-Ehnance, it lets in much more light, so I could use the same exposure settings for AF and plate solving (easy peasey). Also, I increased my exposure time for my light frames to 300 seconds with the Antila.
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I have experieince with most all the duoband filters from optolong, I was most happy with the LEnhance, used it for years and feel I produced some nice images with it - great color and contrast, will stay in my kit. However, I couldnt be happier with the Askar D1D2 set - I think these are far superior and much easier to work with in post. Bortle 4 for reference.
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I think I'm about to pull trigger and buy the Antilia.
Bortle 6-7 most of the time
Refractors all between f2 and f6
Only want to do the single filter option
Should I get the 3nm or 5mn?
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5nm. Less losses. Also, think about the high-speed variant if you are using heavily on anything below f/3. Cost is the same.
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Clayton Ostler:
I think I'm about to pull trigger and buy the Antilia.
Bortle 6-7 most of the time
Refractors all between f2 and f6
Only want to do the single filter option
Should I get the 3nm or 5mn? *** Which refractors are you referring to at f2 ??? ***
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Eh, not a "real" refractor. A lens, I bet.
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The Samyang is no refractor (telescope). Can't be used visually, for once.
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Sure enough it ain't no telescope. Digital age what??
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andrea tasselli:
The Samyang is no refractor (telescope). Can't be used visually, for once.
Who cares about using it visually... I've never used any of my telescopes visually. We're living in the digital age and in that age a camera lens like the 135mm F2 is one of the most popular pieces of equipment used for astrophotography.
You can nitpick all you want though, if that makes you feel better about it 
I agree. Sure we can say it's not a telescope, but I'm taking images with it and it's f2 fast so not sure what else I would compare it to. Yes I have a 2 inch filter drawer in front of it and yes I want to get nebula images.
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I suppose I should add that you can look up images taken with the Rokinon 135 and dedicated astro cam on this same site. There's some great work being shared.
But yes I'm hoping my filter will work in that too.
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Magnification implies afocal projection and thus the use of an eyepiece or equivalent device to provide that magnification and thus a lens is no telescope. Moreover, a photographic lens is designed to focus the object at a specific position regardless of the distance while a telescope wouldn't be able to do so for all distances. You can quote all you want but everyone and their dogs know a telescope from a lens.
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+1 for the L-Ultimate. I have 3 scopes, ranging from F3.6 to F11. Never ever spotted a halo on any star on any of them.
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And there is no thing called "digital age".
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andrea tasselli:
Magnification implies afocal projection and thus the use of an eyepiece or equivalent device to provide that magnification and thus a lens is no telescope. Moreover, a photographic lens is designed to focus the object at a specific position regardless of the distance while a telescope wouldn't be able to do so for all distances. You can quote all you want but everyone and their dogs know a telescope from a lens. I really dont want to bicker over this. It seems really unimportant. Based on your description, a telescope would stop being a telescope as soon as you remove the eyepiece and replace it with a camera. To add to complexity I can literally slap on my 25$ Nikon to eyepiece adapter on any fmount lens and use my eyepieces with it, so that throws a wrench into that description. But I don't really care enough to dispute it. I just want to figure out if 3nm is better that 5nm in heavy light pollution on the Rokinon 135mm with the asi533mc
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I have the 2600mc Pro and am in Bortle 8 and image at f/6.3. I have used the L-eNhance, the L-eXtreme and the L-Ultimate for NB imaging. All worked well for me with halos being mild (in some ways NB filters show less halo, as they reduce the intensity of halso around brighter stars with no filter) and did reduce LP. enabling better images. I get the best results in NB with the L-Ultimate, with the L-eXtreme 2nd best and the L-eNhance, the 3rd best. The reason for the difference is that narrower bandwidth gives better contrast. As long as you are >F5 or so, most filters give similar NB signal transmission, but the narrower the bandwidth the less the off-band background signal. As a rough guide, the suppression of background (that is not Ha or OIII) is inversely proportional to the bandwidth. Here is a table showing bandwidths and background suppression. Roughly speaking the background supression could be considered to be proportional to contrast. So for example the L-eNhance provides 0.3X the contrast of the L-Ultimate for Ha, and 0.125X the contrast for OIII. Using the filters and measuring background I can tell you this table is reasonable for my setup. Now that I have all three, I only use the L-Ultimate for HO NB, I wish I had started with that, but it was a nice learning experience. The L-eXtreme works well too, just not as good for contrast. I do actually use the L-eNhance as a LP filter for broadband targets, but would not recommend for NB. Bandwidth (nm)Background Suppression Relative to L-Ultimate HaOIIIHaOIIIL-eNhance10240.30.125L-eXtreme770.430.43L-Ultimate3311 There are of course many other good and bad fitlers, there are many wonderful articles by James Thompson published on Research Gate. Here is one the deals with halos, the mechanism and data on various filters: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365687384_Understanding_Filter_Induced_Star_HalosThe off-band blocking appears to be the most critical point, he points out if off-band blocking >OD4 then halos are barely or not visible at all in his studies. Off-band blocking just means the filters are opaque over a wide range except for the narrow bands you want. He has many other papers on NB filters that deal with transmission losses for NB filters as a function of f/ratio, all on his ResearchGate page. Just search there, he has done really comprehensive work, he has articles that include all three of these filters. Halos were worse for the L-eXtreme, than the L-Ultimate. The L-Ultimate was the best in his L-Ultimate paper. According to the article the position of the filter is not that important, though it can be a factor. In my case my filter drawer is mounted to the AsI2600MC camera flange, but I don't know if that matters. Note lower f/ratio is a stress for halos, so at low f/ratio you probably need to be pickier with getting the absolute best filter for halos. Hope this helps. Rick
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Rick Veregin:
I have the 2600mc Pro and am in Bortle 8 and image at f/6.3. I have used the L-eNhance, the L-eXtreme and the L-Ultimate for NB imaging. All worked well for me with halos being mild (in some ways NB filters show less halo, as they reduce the intensity of halso around brighter stars with no filter) and did reduce LP. enabling better images. I get the best results in NB with the L-Ultimate, with the L-eXtreme 2nd best and the L-eNhance, the 3rd best. The reason for the difference is that narrower bandwidth gives better contrast. As long as you are >F5 or so, most filters give similar NB signal transmission, but the narrower the bandwidth the less the off-band background signal. As a rough guide, the suppression of background (that is not Ha or OIII) is inversely proportional to the bandwidth. Here is a table showing bandwidths and background suppression. Roughly speaking the background supression could be considered to be proportional to contrast. So for example the L-eNhance provides 0.3X the contrast of the L-Ultimate for Ha, and 0.125X the contrast for OIII. Using the filters and measuring background I can tell you this table is reasonable for my setup.
Now that I have all three, I only use the L-Ultimate for HO NB, I wish I had started with that, but it was a nice learning experience. The L-eXtreme works well too, just not as good for contrast. I do actually use the L-eNhance as a LP filter for broadband targets, but would not recommend for NB. Bandwidth (nm)Background Suppression Relative to L-Ultimate HaOIIIHaOIIIL-eNhance10240.30.125L-eXtreme770.430.43L-Ultimate3311
There are of course many other good and bad fitlers, there are many wonderful articles by James Thompson published on Research Gate. Here is one the deals with halos, the mechanism and data on various filters: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365687384_Understanding_Filter_Induced_Star_Halos
The off-band blocking appears to be the most critical point, he points out if off-band blocking >OD4 then halos are barely or not visible at all in his studies. Off-band blocking just means the filters are opaque over a wide range except for the narrow bands you want.
He has many other papers on NB filters that deal with transmission losses for NB filters as a function of f/ratio, all on his ResearchGate page. Just search there, he has done really comprehensive work, he has articles that include all three of these filters. Halos were worse for the L-eXtreme, than the L-Ultimate. The L-Ultimate was the best in his L-Ultimate paper.
According to the article the position of the filter is not that important, though it can be a factor. In my case my filter drawer is mounted to the AsI2600MC camera flange, but I don't know if that matters.
Note lower f/ratio is a stress for halos, so at low f/ratio you probably need to be pickier with getting the absolute best filter for halos.
Hope this helps.
Rick Rick Veregin:
I have the 2600mc Pro and am in Bortle 8 and image at f/6.3. I have used the L-eNhance, the L-eXtreme and the L-Ultimate for NB imaging. All worked well for me with halos being mild (in some ways NB filters show less halo, as they reduce the intensity of halso around brighter stars with no filter) and did reduce LP. enabling better images. I get the best results in NB with the L-Ultimate, with the L-eXtreme 2nd best and the L-eNhance, the 3rd best. The reason for the difference is that narrower bandwidth gives better contrast. As long as you are >F5 or so, most filters give similar NB signal transmission, but the narrower the bandwidth the less the off-band background signal. As a rough guide, the suppression of background (that is not Ha or OIII) is inversely proportional to the bandwidth. Here is a table showing bandwidths and background suppression. Roughly speaking the background supression could be considered to be proportional to contrast. So for example the L-eNhance provides 0.3X the contrast of the L-Ultimate for Ha, and 0.125X the contrast for OIII. Using the filters and measuring background I can tell you this table is reasonable for my setup.
Now that I have all three, I only use the L-Ultimate for HO NB, I wish I had started with that, but it was a nice learning experience. The L-eXtreme works well too, just not as good for contrast. I do actually use the L-eNhance as a LP filter for broadband targets, but would not recommend for NB. Bandwidth (nm)Background Suppression Relative to L-Ultimate HaOIIIHaOIIIL-eNhance10240.30.125L-eXtreme770.430.43L-Ultimate3311
There are of course many other good and bad fitlers, there are many wonderful articles by James Thompson published on Research Gate. Here is one the deals with halos, the mechanism and data on various filters: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365687384_Understanding_Filter_Induced_Star_Halos
The off-band blocking appears to be the most critical point, he points out if off-band blocking >OD4 then halos are barely or not visible at all in his studies. Off-band blocking just means the filters are opaque over a wide range except for the narrow bands you want.
He has many other papers on NB filters that deal with transmission losses for NB filters as a function of f/ratio, all on his ResearchGate page. Just search there, he has done really comprehensive work, he has articles that include all three of these filters. Halos were worse for the L-eXtreme, than the L-Ultimate. The L-Ultimate was the best in his L-Ultimate paper.
According to the article the position of the filter is not that important, though it can be a factor. In my case my filter drawer is mounted to the AsI2600MC camera flange, but I don't know if that matters.
Note lower f/ratio is a stress for halos, so at low f/ratio you probably need to be pickier with getting the absolute best filter for halos.
Hope this helps.
Rick Thank you for the well written and thoughtful reply. This is very helpful and much appreciated.
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Thanks Rick! Your reply is spot on. The article that Rick refered to is a superb source of information on these filters. I went with the Antilia 3nm OIII and Ha filter. I only have two images with it, but it is a tremendous improvement on the L-Enhance (which I really like).
I do own a Samyang 135/2 and plan to use it with a step down ring if I use the Antilia filter with it.
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Jim Raskett:
Thanks Rick! Your reply is spot on. The article that Rick refered to is a superb source of information on these filters. I went with the Antilia 3nm OIII and Ha filter. I only have two images with it, but it is a tremendous improvement on the L-Enhance (which I really like).
I do own a Samyang 135/2 and plan to use it with a step down ring if I use the Antilia filter with it. Love to hear your experience with the 135 and the 3nm Antilia. I don't follow the step down comments but it's probably not important for this topic.
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+++ on the Antilia 3nm OIII and Ha.
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