The new Baader SLOAN/SDSS Filter Set offer photometric filters suitable from f/15 to f/1.8.
As a background on SLOAN photometric filters, in 2000 a new era in photometry began with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), a 2.5 m telescope at Apache Point Observatory (New Mexico, USA) which surveyed one third of the sky in five wavelengths. A camera with a total of thirty large CCD sensors with 2048×2048 pixels each was used, each in five rows of six sensors. In front of the sensors was a u’g’r’i’z’ filter set for five non-overlapping wavelength windows around 355.1, 468.6, 616.6, 748.0 and 893.2 nm; light pollution such as the airglow at 558nm and the mercury line at 546 nm were masked out.
This system was also used for the Pan-STARRS project. The broad database of these two surveys makes them very well suited for calibrating images. Another advantage are the wider transmission windows, which allow fainter objects to be measured in a shorter time.
UBVRI photometric filters still dominate in amateur circles and Sloan filters have different characteristic than UBVRI filters. However there are now appropriate algorithms to compare the data with each other or to convert them into each other and thus the Sloan photometry system is gaining in usage.
Baader offers unmounted Sloan filters for professional telescopes as well as in the sizes and mounts commonly used by amateurs. The Baader team notes that, in the coming decades, it is expected that the Sloan system will also become more widespread in amateur circles, which is why Baader Planetarium’s SLOAN filters are also available in the common filter sizes for amateur telescopes as well as in the large format 100×100 mm.
The new Baader SLOAN/SDSS Filters are now available according to the SLOAN specification in 8 sizes: 1.25″,31mm, 36mm, 2″, 50,4mm, 50x50mm, 65x65mm and 100x100mm. The same technology is used for the Sloan filters as for Baader’s CMOS-optimized narrowband and LRGB filters and includes Baader’s Life-Coat guarantee.
You can learn more about the new Baader SLOAN/SDSS Filters here.
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