Testing Baader’s solar filters, in the ersatz-obsi
As you know, due to various reasons, lately I’ve been doing solar imaging almost exclusively, focusing on full disk observations. Of the many filters I have turned towards the Sun — some dedicated solar filters, some more in a hacker spirit –, the Calcium K wavelength is one of my favorites, obviously. Now that Baader started selling its generation ii CaK filter, I figured I’d test it against itself, the first generation, and against Lunt’s Calcium module.
UPDATE 2024: in the meanwhile I tested Altair Astro’s early bird sample of Calcium K 3nm, against Antlia’s 3nm CaK, and got a B1800 Lunt CaK (btw fuck Bresser for wasting my time, for the second time in a row regarding Lunt products), to deploy in a long, f/11 tube and protected by a full aperture ERF (from Altair), to do full disk solar with chromosphere and all.
As you also know, I record images as a hobby, without any specific scientific goal, I just like the rigor and if some aesthetics can arise from it, in the form of nice solar disk images in this case.
TLDR0: not much difference, but still.
TLDR1: if doing full disk, if you have the old CaK and like it — keep it and your setup the way it is, the new filter is nice, the profile is standard, but overall, doesn’t show anything new nor better than the old one. Both are that good. Obviously not as good as Lunt’s CaK, but they are a fair competition, given the price range.
TLDR2: if you have the Venus U filter, do use it. It’s not as good for the Sun’s active regions as the CaK, but still pretty good. Also, give the dark blue a chance. Or basically any filter you own.
TLDR3: for Venus, the new filter may yield better images, due to it letting through about two times more light (half the expo time). I like very much the CaK images I obtained of Venus, in the 2020 epic season.
Venus, on 2020-04-05, using Baader’s CaK (gen1), as a false bi-color image with a green filter, mapped to cyan and orange respectively, with a N150/750 tube.
