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Thousand Oaks H/A filters - Thoughts?

Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 4:10 pm
by AtTheEyepiece
I happened to go on Thousand Oaks site and saw that they offer off-axis or center-axis HA filters at some reasonable prices. For my 8" SCT, and complete off-axis system for HA is $839. I was wondering if anyone here uses the HA filters from TO? It's listed as .9 ang, so curious how that would do vs. a .5 ang or the .7 that is most dedicated solar scopes.

Thanks,

John

Re: Thousand Oaks H/A filters - Thoughts?

Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 4:46 pm
by marktownley
Hmmmm, personally I wouldn't bother with the TO - others may say differently. What aperture was the advertsied filter?

Re: Thousand Oaks H/A filters - Thoughts?

Posted: Wed May 30, 2012 4:54 pm
by solarchat
I agree.

I tried and tried for months to get them to return a call to sell me a filter, ANY filter. No luck.

Even if you could get them to reply, .9A will maybe show some bright prominences but thats about it. No surface detail.

You can buy a Lunt 50mm filter for less money and make your Schmidt objective cover into an off axis filter.

Re: Thousand Oaks H/A filters - Thoughts?

Posted: Sat Oct 20, 2012 1:57 am
by rico10
Agreed, bought the off-axis for my CPC and sent it back, it was horrible. The sweet spot was a joke, it looked like you were drawing a bright curtain across the disc. Maybe they will change their product someday.

Re: Thousand Oaks H/A filters - Thoughts?

Posted: Sat Oct 20, 2012 9:09 am
by brianb11213
.9A will maybe show some bright prominences but thats about it. No surface detail.
The standard H alpha PST is 1.0A bandpass and that shows surface detail pretty well. I haven't any direct experience of the TO filters but I was under the impression that the bandpass was nearer to 1.5A.

Re: Thousand Oaks H/A filters - Thoughts?

Posted: Sat Oct 20, 2012 12:08 pm
by Bill E.
interesting topic :thanx:

Re: Thousand Oaks H/A filters - Thoughts?

Posted: Sat Oct 20, 2012 12:24 pm
by Pedro
I tried a TO filter a long time ago (2002) and could only see proms (very few disk details if any).

http://www.astrosurf.com/re/vixen_thous ... 020409.jpg
http://www.astrosurf.com/re/h_alpha_tho ... mosaic.jpg
http://www.astrosurf.com/re/halpha_thou ... 020411.jpg

best regards

Re: Thousand Oaks H/A filters - Thoughts?

Posted: Sat Oct 20, 2012 8:45 pm
by swisswalter
Hi John

very interesting thread. I would go with standards