Optolong OIII 6.5nm Filter – 1.25″
The Optolong 1.25″ Oxygen III 6.5nm Extra-Narrowband Filter permits transmission of only a 6.5nm bandwidth of light, centered at 500nm. This greatly reduces other transmissions, such as wavelengths of light notorious for artificial and natural light pollution. Like all Optolong CCD filters, this OIII also blocks infrared wavelengths from 700nm to 1100nm so there is no need for a separate IR-Cut filter.
This filter does wonders when imaging emission and planetary nebulae and does a great job on supernova remnants as well. The Optolong 6.5nm Oxygen III filter can be used alone to pull out the blue-green structure in star-forming regions and emission nebulae or in conjunction with H-Alpha and SII 6.5nm filters for false color emission line images like the Hubble Space Telescope.
Due to the narrow bandwidth and high transmission rate of this filter, you will experience a major boost to contrast. The sky will be black, and when compared to a 12nm OIII, half as many stars will peep through. Extra Narrowband filters work best with cameras that have very low dark current but will allow you to image from sites with lots of light pollution.
The Optolong 1.25” OIII 6.5nm Filter is made with Schott glass that has been multi-coated with an ion-assisted deposition technology to ensure scratch resistance and stability on the central wavelength, or CWL. The filter cell is made of lightweight, strong metal and is CNC machined, sand-blasted, black anodized, and then laser engraved. The result is a super thin filter cell that will produce a clear aperture of 26mm.
Quality Filter Materials:
- Schott B260 substrate material from Germany, 2.0mm thick
- Multiple layers of anti-reflection non-cementing coatings applied via electron-beam gun evaporation with Ion-assisted deposition
- CNC machined and black anodized aero-metal filter cell that is ultra-thin to provide largest clear aperture; Laser-engraved to prevent fading
Optolong Filter Manufacturing Processes and Parameters
- Filter substrate is fine-optically polished to 1/4 wave and <30 parallelism over both surfaces
- Surface quality, according to MIL-O-13830, is 60/40
- 80% transmission at OIII line 500nm
- Infrared wavelength 700-1100nm cut-off
- 0.1% transmission Hg at 435nm and 578nm
- 0.1% transmission Na at 589nm
- High-value transmission of pass-band and optical density of off-band is assured through Optolong’s planetary rotation system, a homogeneous and precise coating procedure
- Each filter comes with a plastic case with high-pressure EVA case lining
- Thin metal cells have a clear aperture of 26mm for 1.25” filters
About Optolong
Optolong is the Astronomy Filters division of Yulong Optics, an optical filter design, and processing company out of Kunming, China that has provided filters for over 700 optical companies since 1999. All Optolong filters pass European Union RoHS requirements and have been certified by TUV Rheinland and Bureau Veritas.