ASKAR ColourMagic 3nm S/H/O Filters - Comparison to 6nm Astronomik's!

[@HogarthsAstrophotography]

Hey Luke, glad to see you had a great experience from the Askar filters. I’ve been impressed with the dual narrowband I’ve got and the small FRA300 from them. They are certainly making good impressions in the Astro world

[@lukomatico]

Thanks so much for the kind comment Nigel! - It's good to hear from you mate 😀 I've been impressed by the filters, and the 130phq (shame about the reducer) so I'm hopeful lots of their product line is just as promising - they've been making waves in the industry! It's great to hear you have been pleased with your own kit from them too, that's a good sign! I appreciate you watching and giving your continued support my friend :-) Clear skies!

[@jonbasstro1413]

Hi Luke, nice review and comparison.It’s good to see the difference between the two sets of filters side by side in a raw state.Great detail in the final image.Clear skies.

[@lukomatico]

Thanks for watching Jon!! - I'm glad it was nice to see the difference, I found it quite interesting too! :-D I appreciate your support my friend, clear skies!

[@paulholdsworth2502]

Loving the product review videos you're starting to do now Luke. I find them really interesting and I'm sure other manufacturers will follow. Even with you tube compression you can clearly see the difference between 3nm and 6nm filters. Really good video Luke 👍

[@lukomatico]

Thanks Paul, I'm glad you like them mate!! - I'm enjoying doing the reviews but I think the videos themselves seem to not do too well on KZbin haha! Maybe it's my presentation or videography that needs work? any tips appreciated! Definitely a notable difference between those 3nm & 6nm though mate, I'm glad it still came across well!

[@Astrobloke]

So many great new products keep being released which is nothing but a good thing for us Astrophotographers but not so for our bank balances lol. Great video mate full of details. Definitely worth a look. Clear skies mate

[@lukomatico]

Hey Glenn! Hope you are doing well mate! 😀 Couldn't agree more, all this fabulous new kit is really superb to see - just wish I was rich so I could own more of it haha! I appreciate you coming by and watching mate, wishing you all the best!

[@jjjscharf8059]

Really appreciate these comparison videos Luke. Very insightful, informative and tons of value. Much appreciated :)

[@lukomatico]

Glad it was helpful! Thank you very much for watching mate :-)

[@Pilord]

Cannot believe you are sharing this now!❤ looking for filters these days, was looking for the Antlia ones but these also caught my attention yesterday. Thank you so much mate, just watching your video now

[@lukomatico]

That's superb mate, so happy the timing was good on this one haha! :-D Good luck finding the right filter!

[@siegfriednoet]

Very interesting comparison video again Luke and a great image to end with, very beautiful I have been using a 3Nm L-Ultimate filter for a few months now and was also blown away about the better contrasty subs it produces against my L-extreme., ans also much less halos

[@lukomatico]

That's great to hear the l-ultimate is working for you!! Those narrower bandpasses really are superb 👍

[@tommyozzy317]

No kidding about the 2”. Purchased the dual colour magic from Askar. Absolutely love them so far but took a few weeks to get the correct adapters since everything i had has been 1.25" up until now. then of course worrying about figuring out your back focus with all the new equipment.

[@lukomatico]

100% agree haha, it's a total PITA! Ah well, at least I got to test them :-D Thanks for watching!

[@sevenskiesastro]

Timely video Luke as I'm looking for a 3nm o3 filter. Great review and clear skies bud.

[@lukomatico]

Thanks for watching Rob! I appreciate it buddy :-)

[@avt_astro206]

Nice comparison Luke!! Nice Image there too!

[@lukomatico]

Glad you think so mate! - Thanks for watching :-D

[@dumpydalekobservatory]

They look like a great set of filters performed really well, cracking image to.

[@lukomatico]

Thanks Tich! - They certainly seem a good set yeah!! :-D

[@paulsmaglik5063]

OK Luke I bought those damn filters I was impressed with your results of those filters.

[@lukomatico]

That's superb mate, I reckon you've got a superb set of filters on the way there! :-) I'm jealous haha!! Hope you get some clear skies soon buddy! Thanks for watching and for your support, all the best!

[@Tony-Elliott]

Very nice comparison Luke

[@lukomatico]

Thanks so much mate! :-) Hope you have a great weekend!

[@FrootyRecords]

Great picture Luke for 4 Hours, wow! . That 3nm Oxygen filter it the nuts! , I feel 50-60 hours of oxygen on Andromeda Wide field is coming soon from your channel. eheheh!

[@lukomatico]

Haha! :-D Thanks Dave! Hope you're keeping well mate! I'd love to do a huge project someday, maybe I'll have to make it finally happen this year depending on the weather we get :-) Clear skies mate!

[@quincylee2276]

Wow, right off the bat the Oiii data looked significantly better in 3nm. I might just buy that one first to spread out my expenses a bit. Thanks for this great review, btw!

[@lukomatico]

Glad I could help mate! The OIII was a pretty stark difference for sure 👍👍

[@daenu]

Thnks for the review. How fast was the scooe used? For faster scopes - say below f/4 - I am sceptical and would probably play safe and go for 5…6nm filters (shifting, production tolerance)

[@lukomatico]

Thanks for watching mate! - It was f5.4 :-) There's quite a few pre-shifted filters out there these days too if you're looking to use some on fast optics, worth consideration! Clear skies!

[@SimonsAstro]

Incredible image Luke! Love the monkey head😀 Those filters look really promising, would be interested in seeing the difference between these Askar filters and the ones I’ve recently brought, the Antlia 3nm filters!! Also a similar price I believe! Great review mate👍 Clear skies Luke!

[@lukomatico]

Thanks Simon!! :-D Always great to hear from you mate, hope you're keeping well! It'd be nice to do a big group-test someday for sure, I'd just have to ask a bunch of manufacturers to be brave enough to A: send me filters for testing, and B: agree to have them pitted directly against the competition haha! :-D I hear a lot of good things about the Antlia's so I'm sure you're onto a winner with those bud! :-) Enjoy!

[@deep_space_dave]

Thanks for the review Luke! You should see if you can review the Antlia dual band 5nm high speed for your RASA! I have it and so far no halos. It is pretty good and I think the performance is better than the IDAZ NBZ. Unfortunately constant clouds here so I haven't been able to do a long enough imaging session yet to make a good picture. CS!

[@lukomatico]

I've actually got one Dave!! :-D Mine is giving halos on the Jellyfish nebula unfortunately, where there's nil visible on the NBZ UHS - oddly enough though, no halos on alnitak! (super odd) Hope I'll get the chance to do more testing soon and make a video!

[@viewintospace]

Looks like that would be the filters of choice when I switch to mono.... But what I find more interesting is the extrem Amp Glow that you get.... Is this from the Poseidon-C?? Because the ASI 2600MC with the same chip does not have any issues with Amp-Glow..... So either yours has a defect or this would be a clear no-buy recommendation I assume.....

[@lukomatico]

Great to hear you like the look of the filter mate! - RE: amp glow- this was taken with an ASI183MM Pro mono camera, hence the strong amp glow on uncalibrated frames! 😀 (The Poseidon-C has zero amp glow, just the same as the 2600mc of course :-) ) Thanks for watching Sascha my friend!

[@viewintospace]

@@lukomatico Duh, I should have known, obviously had to be from a mono cam 🤦‍♂️

[@DSOImager]

They look like Excellent filters!

[@lukomatico]

They look pretty good hey James! - I wish I'd had longer to test them more thoroughly though haha! :-)

[@petecarpenter1068]

Hi Luke, thanks for all the info. I’ve been looking at the Antlia range, do you have any knowledge of these please? It’s going to hard to justify the cost of the 3 nm set but the 4.5 nm ones seem a good compromise. I’d be interested in any thoughts or recommendations you may have. Cheers.

[@lukomatico]

Thanks for watching Pete! - I'm afraid I don't have any first-hand experience with the Antlia's so I'd be very wary about giving advice on them, but I believe Glenn over at the channel AstroBloke has a set he could tell you more about, he bought them a good few months ago I believe! :-) As to recommendations, I've been very happy with the Astronomik 6nm's we have - way better than previous baader offerings we'd tried! (which is a shame as baader can make some really good stuff!) I also hear from a good friend that the astronomik maxFR are very nice too. A lot to think about I guess! :-) Clear skies mate!

[@redabdab]

Nice one Luke! Thanks. Can I ask about your comment at the end there? You said this test would be better done on a reflector than an APO. Why is that?

[@lukomatico]

Ah yeah! The comment was aimed at the tests I performed for parfocality, a pure reflector system suffers no spectrum based focus shift like a refracting system can (even a true apo like mine), so however slight the difference would be, a pure reflecting system would have been a better test there :-) (but still, at least the 'test bench' for both sets of filters was the same, leading me to feel like it was a valid enough test anyway) Hope that explains my reasoning for the comment mate! :-) Clear skies!

[@qx3V45p]

Real test is with bright star to check halo performance. Maybe jellyfish nebula is good target. I use Antlia 3nm and have bad halos on Ha and O3. S2 is fine.

[@lukomatico]

Aye I wish I'd had more time with them to do more testing, but I needed to send them on to another KZbinr - hopefully he'll have plenty more skies to do a test! :-)

[@Apagadorable]

Now we just need to see more samples of these filters tested to make sure that the filters Luke got are representative of the general quality and not just the best of the bunch cherry picked by Askar. Been burned by low quality filters and I'm pretty sceptical nowadays 😅

[@lukomatico]

True mate yeah! I'm sure every aspect of them will be thoroughly tested over the coming months by folks buying/reviewing them! :-) Clear skies!

[@LogansAstro]

Those filters certainly look to be doing a better job than the 6nm filters which is very encouraging that there is yet another option for astrophotographers looking tp purchase 3nm filters without paying Astrodon-ical 😂prices. Would be interesting to see how they compare with the 3nm offerings from Antlia and Optolong.

[@lukomatico]

Thanks Logan!! - Yeah some extra comparisons, or a big group test would be fantastic to do someday! unfortunately these are now out of my possession haha, maybe the new tester can put something together :-D Clear skies mate!

[@lokizoracetop9904]

Круто, молодец за тест 👍

[@lukomatico]

Thanks for watching! :-D

[@Miguel_Noppe]

Nice review, those filters seem legit ! Pity though you didn't test on a bright star to test for halo's. CS

[@lukomatico]

Aye mate that would have been better, I just didn't have enough time to explore further with the filters! Hopefully the next chap who gets them will be able to do a more thorough test! :-D

[@Miguel_Noppe]

@@lukomatico I hear ya, worst winter imaginable here too, clouds clouds and more clouds.

[@anata5127]

Is it test in bortle 7 location with some Moon? How will they behave, if scope has f3? What company manufactures these filters for Askar? Thanks

[@lukomatico]

Hey Ana! It is indeed tested in b7 with some moonlight during this video 👍 I'm not sure who makes the filters but they do say they aren't made by the same company as Antlia! (Seen on a Facebook comment) Re: usage at f3, probably unsuitable for that kind of speed, there'd be too much bandpass shift - better to aim for specialised high-speed pre-shifted filters if you want to do NB at that type of f-ratio 👍 Hope that helps!

[@anata5127]

@@lukomatico Great! In your opinion, what companies make better filters for f2-4? Thanks

[@lukomatico]

I think the Astronomik maxFR are great, my friend has two sets and has tried them on a variety of scopes without halos! 👍

[@anata5127]

@@lukomatico This is top info! Thanks I would like to have wide field, fast scope, but have not decided on which one. Let’s say you have funds, will you go with SharpStar 150mm f2.8, Tak Epsilon 130mm f3.3, or RASA 8” f2? Some other candidates? I am thinking one of Newtonian. Don’t want hassle operation of RASA or Veloce.

[@lukomatico]

My pleasure Ana, happy to help! Re: Which of those scopes, I'd go with the Epsilon 130d personally, it's well loved and respected by the astro community! No problems to set it up for mono with a filter wheel too unlike the RASA of course :-) Hope that's helpful to you! Good luck 👍

[@whatmattersmost6725]

The main concern I have with many of these YT filters testing is I bet Askar sent you the best of the selection or top performing filters and what upsets me is your results are great but when we purchase them they are regular off the line production! It's FACT this is done for influencers!

[@lukomatico]

I definitely didn't receive a cherry-picked reducer for the scope I just tested for Askar at least 😅! I admit it's possible these things are done, but if so it's been done entirely without my knowledge! I can only test what they send me after all, I don't earn enough to buy all these things independently yet just for a KZbin video that'll make me £20 - I'd be hemorrhaging money!

[@peterlaubscher3989]

Many thanks, Luke. Great image. I love working with 3 nm filters. I am a luddite when it comes to all things CMOS, bits and bytes, but I'd love to know whether anyone thinks it would be possible to build a camera than could selectively record light at specified wave lengths. So, you could dial in the wavelength for Ha and the whole chip would record light from the mid-point of the Ha emission line and the so on for OIII and SII etc. Would love to hear what people think who are knowledgeable about such things - would seem to offer amazing possibilities.

[@lukomatico]

Hey Peter! - Effectively you are already able to do that with a monochrome camera & filters! :-) I hope I've interpreted your message correctly!

[@peterlaubscher3989]

@@lukomatico Thanks, Luke - yes, I do that, although I am more into OSC these days - my elderly mono CDC takes forever to download frames - it just seems that having the camera do that selectively would add so many possibilities.

[@richards3192]

Askar marketing department must be in overdrive at the mo, these colormagic filters are popping up everywhere. I remain unconvinced with Askar QC however. I assume they tested and cherry picked all the influencer samples prior to dispatch.

[@lukomatico]

That may be possible mate, but I doubt they were cherry picked - they certainly didn't cherry pick the reducer for the scope I just tested - it was pants! 😅 Thanks for watching 👍

[@paulsmaglik5063]

Hey Luke, I hate you LOL now you offering another toy that I need to buy. Very impressive filters and they are expensive but I love the results.

[@lukomatico]

Haha! - I'm sorry about that Paul mate :-D They do look like a good set! It's a shame I didn't get another chance to test them further!