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Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Thu May 31, 2018 4:04 pm
by MalVeauX
Hello,

I'm trying to gather information on this subject as I have seen some really lovely truss refractor designs using internal ERFs instead of massive full aperture ERFs which are also extremely expensive. However, I'm curious what the difference is in heat blocking/rejection between a full aperture ERF and a smaller, deeper in the light cone internal smaller aperture ERF would be. For example, say you take a 6 inch or 8 inch refractor objective, F6 to F8 and put an 75~90mm aperture ERF on the inside somewhere that the light cone would fit through clearly, before the focuser. Either well before the focuser or on the nose of the focuser tube, but without cutting into the light cone. Does that work or is it inherently going to not block as much energy compared to simply being full aperture in front of the objective?

Very best,

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Thu May 31, 2018 5:06 pm
by bart1805
Hi Marty,
I thought the erf should be about 2/3 of the front lens. But please wait for others to react before you act on this advice. (-;
Or try to find a second hand Erf and put it before the lens.
Bart.

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Thu May 31, 2018 6:10 pm
by Valery
Marty, ask any planetary and lunar imagers - do they willing to put even a very weak source of heat inside their telescopes.

Any erf can't reflect all the unwanted energy and will absorb some heat and so, produce some air turbulence.
This were especially well seen with the Quark Chromosphere worked in a 150mm telescope without front ERF
or with just UV/IR small filter. Some areas on the images were like covered by veil and look less sharp after the
post processing.

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Thu May 31, 2018 6:39 pm
by christian viladrich
Hi,

The classical ratio for Ha ERF is 2/3. It works pretty well with a 250 mm F/10 refractor.

For Ca K, I use a 1/3 ratio (150 mm F/7 refractor and 50 mm internal ERF). It started as a test. It looks fine until now, but I would not recommend for the moment. Definite conclusions would wait the end of the summer season.

My guess is that all ERF are not equivalent. For internal position, you have to forget about substrates absorbing energy (RG630, etc).

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Thu May 31, 2018 11:14 pm
by Merlin66
Bases on numerous PST mods over the years,I always recommend the internal ERF be >50% the clear aperture andplaced as close to the objective as possible.
I also highly recommend the Baader D-ERF over the alternatives.

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2018 11:26 am
by Valery
TheSkyBurner wrote: Fri Jun 01, 2018 2:02 am For h-alpha the baader planetarium d-erf is definatley by far #1 and it will always beat anything else. It seems to increase contrast noticeably on all the scopes that use them. Nothing else compares.
TheSkyBurner and Merlin66,

Any factual prove? Pictures, contrast measurements on the same equipment and the same camera and the same hour?
No? Then all you said is just your speculations. As for the factual images, they loose.

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2018 1:14 pm
by Merlin66
Valery,
I accept there are other good ERF's available, but unless you have access to quantified data on Baader D-ERF and others and prepared to share, I can only agree - "speculation".

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2018 3:20 pm
by banjo
Hello,
I just did a test with a 250mm f2800 lens.
The D-erf 75mm is about 500mm from the camera, the D-erf has a big advantage is to reject with a mirror effect all that is not Ha.
The test only a few minutes without the filter heats too much.
When the weather decides to put on a nice weather, I will leave the filter longer.
Paul

I'm a little crazy, but I'm treating myself

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2018 10:16 pm
by MalVeauX
Banjo...

What is that thing? Looks like a wooden box? Home brew refractor?

Very best,

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2018 7:20 pm
by christian viladrich
Maybe a word of clarification is needed there ...

An ERF has no impact at all on contrast, except if it is of bad optical quality or bad uniformity.
The contrast of Ha images depends on the Ha filter (= blocking photospheric contribution), the optical quality of the telescope and optical set-up(including level of diffusion) and the quality of seeing.
I have both the Baader D-ERF (160 mm) and the AiryLab ERF ( 210 mm). Both are of excellent quality. This is proven by a lot of Ha images I took with the TOA 150 and the C8 EDgeHD, and also mesurements on optical bench.
My 160 D-ERF is L/9.6 P-V :
Image
My 210 mm AiryLab is L/10 P-V.

This beeing said, I won't pretend there is no other good / excellent ERFs, since ... I have tested no others. ;-)

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2018 12:06 am
by Merlin66
If the filter is 100mm from the focus, it will be re-focusing the solar image 100mm in front - towards the objective.
Interesting.....

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2018 2:56 am
by Merlin66
Well, if nothing else, it shows that the Baader CCD filter reflects the majority of the incoming light and energy.

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2018 5:29 am
by marktownley
Interesting chaps.

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2018 8:51 am
by banjo
MalVeauX wrote: Sat Jun 02, 2018 10:16 pm Banjo...

What is that thing? Looks like a wooden box? Home brew refractor?

Very best,
hello,
my telescope in white light version, there is obviously no filter in front of the lens for the Ha. :lol:

Paul

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2018 3:20 pm
by marktownley
Nice scope!

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2018 7:30 pm
by christian viladrich
BTW, air cant' be "vaporized". The humidity in the air is already in the form of vapor. O2 and N2 molecules are already in the form of gaz ;-)

Humidity can condensate, if the temperature decreases below the "dew point", but obviously this can't be the case here.

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2018 7:35 pm
by christian viladrich
Just some ideas about the "Baader blue filter that burns the air" :

- First of all, these filters are interference filters. They don't absorb light, they reflects light (absoption is typically lower than 0.1%).
- Accordingly, a blue filter reflects yellow light (= green + red), a green filter reflects magenta (= blue + red) , a red filter reflects cyan light (= blue + green).
- So, it is not suprising that the reflected light is yellow :-)
- I can see that the reflected beam meets partly with the tube on the refractor. This is indeed very bad. It means that the reflected beam heats the tube (remember the tube is black), which in turns heats the air, which finally builds up convection. This might be an explanation of what you are experiencing. I am not sure at 100%, because I am not there at your side to check what is going on ;-)
- So, the first thing to do is to tilt the blue filter so that the reflected beam remains inside the aperture of the objective of your refractor. It should not be center on the objective (otherwise you might have reflection at the focus), but off-center.

Hope this helps.

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2018 9:49 pm
by marktownley
Maybe the smoke / vapour we are seeing is just pollen in the air showing tube currents?

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:49 am
by Rusted
This is a bit late but I have a warning about sub-aperture, internal D-ERFs:

There is a fiercely hot, refocused and unfiltered, reflected Solar image well in front of my 6" f/8 [120/10] objective.
I'm using a 90mm internal Baader D-ERF with PST H-a filtration in an old CR150HD donor.

Fortunately, my head has usually blocked the sun's light when I happened to glance into the objective while pointing at the Sun.
But an unwary hand waved in front of the objective would probably be burnt since it can't eclipse enough incoming sunlight.

A long dewshield might be a very good idea where the public has even "accidental" access to such an instrument.
An amateur solar observer, with children wandering about, should be very aware of this very real danger.
A small child's head would still allow annular sunlight to fall on a larger objective with potentially tragic consequences.
Most of a lens's collecting area is in the outer zones.

A full aperture D-ERF filter, fixed securely in front of the objective, would minimize the risk down to "normal strength" reflected sunlight.
The reflected glare would usually be enough to cause a person, or child, to desist from their "Darwin Awards" curiosity.

However, a reflected and re-focused image, from an internal D-ERF, might not give the "accidental" viewer any chance at all to withdraw before damaging their sight permanently.
And yes, you can easily set light to a strip of wood held a few inches in front of the objective on my 6" modified refractor!
Fortunately my telescope is very inaccessible and large enough to need a stepladder to reach the objective.

Logic suggests that the larger the internal D-ERF the further forward of the objective the Sun's re-focused image will be thrown.
I wouldn't be leaving stepladders anywhere near such an instrument when leaving it unattended.! :movie

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2018 8:05 pm
by MalVeauX
Rusted wrote: Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:49 am This is a bit late but I have a warning about sub-aperture, internal D-ERFs:

There is a fiercely hot, refocused and unfiltered, reflected Solar image well in front of my 6" f/8 [120/10] objective.
I'm using a 90mm internal Baader D-ERF with PST H-a filtration in an old CR150HD donor.

Fortunately, my head has usually blocked the sun's light when I happened to glance into the objective while pointing at the Sun.
But an unwary hand waved in front of the objective would probably be burnt since it can't eclipse enough incoming sunlight.

A long dewshield might be a very good idea where the public has even "accidental" access to such an instrument.
An amateur solar observer, with children wandering about, should be very aware of this very real danger.
A small child's head would still allow annular sunlight to fall on a larger objective with potentially tragic consequences.
Most of a lens's collecting area is in the outer zones.

A full aperture D-ERF filter, fixed securely in front of the objective, would minimize the risk down to "normal strength" reflected sunlight.
The reflected glare would usually be enough to cause a person, or child, to desist from their "Darwin Awards" curiosity.

However, a reflected and re-focused image, from an internal D-ERF, might not give the "accidental" viewer any chance at all to withdraw before damaging their sight permanently.
And yes, you can easily set light to a strip of wood held a few inches in front of the objective on my 6" modified refractor!
Fortunately my telescope is very inaccessible and large enough to need a stepladder to reach the objective.

Logic suggests that the larger the internal D-ERF the further forward of the objective the Sun's re-focused image will be thrown.
I wouldn't be leaving stepladders anywhere near such an instrument when leaving it unattended.! :movie
Very good information to know! I have I think the same exact scope, an old CR150HD refractor, 6" F8. I've been using it mostly lately. While it works fine with the 2" UV/IR cut filter and my Quark, I'm definitely thinking of putting an ERF inside it. A full aperture ERF is simply too costly right now, and I'd rather put that money towards a larger ERF ultimately (saving towards a big SCT size ERF eventually). But an internal 75mm or 90mm is $350 and $500 and that's much more affordable to tide me over a few more years while continuing to image.

My imaging scopes are never around other people, just me, in my observatory, pointing at the sky. So I'm not worried about others. But, the safety tips are very appreciated!

May I ask how you installed your Baader 90mm ERF internal in that scope? Would love to see how you managed it. Images would be lovely!

I was thinking about getting a 90mm ERF ($500 new) and installing it on a frame that bolts onto an internal baffle surface in the scope as the holding cell basically. The big question is... how and where to cut the OTA to get access, or, can I simply put it in via taking the front element cell off and reaching down into the OTA and some how getting it in there.

My other concern is being able to get it back out. I like to image in CaK with this same instrument, but I think the Baader ERF would kill that, so I'd have to be able to remove the the internal ERF some how. I'm trying to find a way to make this modular....

Any ideas on modular internal ERF?

Very best,

Re: Front ERF vs Internal ERF? Minimum size?

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 4:19 pm
by Rusted
I'm so sorry! I seem to have completely missed your response. I should log in instead of just browsing the threads. :oops:

I fitted my 90mm D-ERF into a stainless steel pot and then bolted it to the nearest original baffle to the correct size.

https://fullerscopes.blogspot.com/2018/ ... -cell.html

D-ERF presently fitted about 35cm down the tube from the objective thread. NOT the objective.

Today I discovered that my 150mm lens throws a hot beam onto the PST etalon despite the internal D-ERF!
I had removed everything beyond the D-ERF to check the actual focus without the etalon.
And promptly set fire to my black foam target! It worries me that the etalon is being subjected to so much heat!
This is mid winter at 55N with the sun only 13° high!

6" Ø hot beam from D-ERF!
6" Ø hot beam from D-ERF!
P1360389 rsz 600.JPG (43.01 KiB) Viewed 7506 times