Description

The first thing you’ll notice is that these filters are produced for us in Germany by Astronomik. Tele Vue and Astronomik are two relatively small companies that adhere to the same philosophy. Do it better, or don’t do it at all; the products, customer, and night sky deserve it.

David Nagler and Gerd Neumann had crossed paths at astronomy shows for years. Both have had their frustrations with the filter business. From passband to thread tolerances, the filter industry seems like the “wild west” of astronomical products. We had been looking to develop a long-term supplier of state-of-the-art, custom filters and approached Astronomik with the idea of reintroducing Tele Vue’s line of premium quality Bandmate filters; guaranteed to perform and fit, with uniformity beyond any competitive brand. Gerd and Eric of Astronomik were excited with the idea of a partnership with Tele Vue. “When we started into Amateur-Astronomy, Tele Vue already was a legendary brand known for its outstanding quality of their telescopes and eyepieces. Today we are proud to team up with them to share our knowledge and experience in filter design and production and bring the best filters possible to all astronomers worldwide.”

Specifications

The distinction you'll find with Bandmate filters is their consistency, achieved by keeping control of the manufacturing and quality control processes each company does so well. All the materials are sourced in Germany. Each filter is: optically tested by Tele Vue in high power-space to ensure no image degradation, tested by Astronomik on a spectrograph to ensure the coating meets design specifications, mechanically tested for fit, cosmetically inspected for pinholes, digs, and sleeks and serialized, all to insure customer satisfaction. All filters are backed with a 10-year warranty against manufacturing defects.

The Nebustar filter is a unique narrowband design specifically for Tele Vue. Unlike other UHC designs, Nebustar blocks red wavelengths normally passed by typical UHC filters. The design eliminates star bloat to produce sharper, more natural looking stars along with enhanced nebulosity. This is a great general-purpose nebula filter for scopes of any size. Astronomik is proud to deliver this exclusive filter through Tele Vue and wishes that customers "enjoy magnificent observing sessions with our most recent development for visual observers: The TeleVue Type 2 Nebustar."

The OIII and Hβ are more typical representative offerings available from Astronomik's product line but with the tight specification tolerances and additional assurance of Tele Vue's testing guarantee.

Our OIII filter passes light from doubly ionized oxygen atoms. As such, it is great for viewing planetary nebulae and supernovae remnants.

The Hβ filter passes the aqua colored hydrogen-beta emission lines found in the Horsehead, California, and other hydrogen emitting nebulae. It is effective for viewing objects that take up the entire field — even when using our wide-angle eyepieces.