MaxFR filters are optimised for astrophotography with very fast telescopes, such as Celestron RASA optics or the Omegon Pro Astrographs.
For the three most important lines, namely OIII, H-alpha and SII, the series offers filter sets with half-widths of 12nm and 6nm.
The filters provide the best possible out-of-band blocking across the entire spectral range from UV to IR! The advantages are maximum contrast, minimal stray light, no halos and the finest star images. With Astronomik MaxFR narrowband line filters, you get raw data of the highest quality: the optimal starting point for further processing into impressive astrophotography!
For the best possible yield, maximum transmission of the filters is required:
- For MaxFR filters with a 12 nm half-width, this means unrestricted usability from f/1.7 to f/8 and approximately 85% of the maximum transmission.
- For MaxFR filters with a half-width of 6 nm, this means unrestricted usability from f/2.2 to f/8 and approximately 90% of the maximum transmission.
The SII filter is optimised for particularly high-contrast results by not allowing H-alpha and NII (nitrogen) to pass through.
Please note: In principle, all camera lenses can be used with the Clip-Filter - i.e. Canon EF lenses or camera lenses from other third party manufacturers such as Sigma, Tamron, Tokina, Walimex etc. However, the use of clip-filters with Canon EF-S lenses is NOT possible!
Photography with narrowband line filters: If you are observing under bright skies, line filters are the best way to get started in astrophotography and take great pictures. An H-alpha filter is usually the first sensible purchase: with this filter, you can easily take detailed pictures even when the moon is full or the sky is very bright! It is also the right filter for all nebulae that glow in red light.
The OIII filter greatly expands your possibilities, as it allows you to capture all greenish/bluish structures in detail and with high contrast. Planetary nebulae and star-forming regions are particularly rewarding targets! With the SII filter, your HSO filter set is complete, and with the three channels you can take colour images like the Hubble Space Telescope!
The H-beta filter is not available in the 6nm version, as this filter has virtually no useful application.
Which half-width is the right one? When shooting under dark skies, images taken with a DSLR and even with many cooled CCD cameras are limited by the dark current of the camera and not by the background brightness of the sky. In this case, further suppression of the sky background by a lower half-width does not reveal any more details in the object! Compared to the 6 nm filters, the 12 nm filters have the advantage that they usually make it easier to find tracking stars with cameras that have a built-in tracking sensor!
If you have a camera with particularly low dark current and good cooling, the 6 nm filters offer all their advantages: Even stronger suppression of sky brightening allows even longer exposure times and thus even deeper images! Due to the low half-width, the stars become tiny, and faint stars disappear almost completely. Especially in Milky Way regions with many stars, the 6nm filters allow even faint objects to be displayed with high contrast without getting lost in the swarm of stars.
In short, we recommend using 12nm filters for DSLRs and all cameras with limited dark current.
The 6nm filters are the right choice in locations with strong light pollution, for cameras with extremely low dark current, and when faint objects require maximum contrast in the image!
