Our club was cleaning out the basement of our warming building and getting rid of unused equipment. During the cleanup, a wooden box with an SSP-3 was uncovered. The SSP-3 appears to be complete. I read through the AAVSO Photoelectric Photometry Manual, and it mentions that the photometric filters that come with the SSP-3 can degrade over time. Is there any way to determine if the filters that come with this SSP-3 are sound?
First step
Hello David! For starters, pull the filter slider out and look at the filters with some illumination behind them. Do they appear “hazy” or otherwise not of uniform shading?
Where are you located? We’d love to have another observer join our alpha Cygnis project.
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Tom
I am in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I examined the V, B, I, and R filters using a 20x field microscope. The V looks good with some imperfections. The B filter has a uniform colour, but 70-80% of the surface is covered with bubbles as if it were made of Glad Press’n Seal. As the I filter did not transmit any visible light, I was unable to determine its condition. The R filter appears to be okay.