BP-1212 - Silver-Black Polymer Solar Filter Film Sheet (12" x 12") - 1 ea

Works as expected

It's the real deal, made in the USA. This stuff was more valuable than gold in the days before the GAE and everybody wanted it.I tested it against various high-brightness sources such as high intensity 5W LED flashlights, and a 100mW 395nm UV laser. You could see the LED die structure in great detail with the minimal amount of light that would pass. This filter material would be perfect for inspecting LED die structures or as a means of taking low intensity measurements for quality control. The UV laser would not pass through the filter at near 100%. Only the occasional photon or two would pass when moving the laser at different angles, due to what I think is scattering. I tested some of the recalled solar viewing glasses from China and found that there was varying degrees of UV light passage in about 30% of my sample. Please, folks, don't do this kind of testing with your eyes and instead use a camera as a sensor.I made various camera filters out of the filter film by carefully tracing the glass element of a disassembled UV filter and then reassembling the filter with the film behind the glass. Even my besting cutting skills weren't enough to prevent imperfection around the edges, and that is why I put it on the backside. The compression of the glass ensured the filter film was against the back inside edge of the black anodized aluminum UV filter assembly and prevented any light bleed. Ideally, laser cutting these would be better.For personal viewing with my 20-100 x 70mm monster binoculars, I crafted two identical cardboard tube rings around the outside edge of the objective lenses with a few wraps of coiled 2" wide card stock cut from cereal boxes and then a few wraps of tape to hold them together. I then put strong double-sided tape around the outside of the tube rings. The filter film was cut into 3/4" oversized circles using appropriately sized round plastic food containers as a template. I then set the binoculars upright with these card stock ring sleeves and centered them over the pre-cut circular filter films. With everything aligned and pressed against the filter film and a cutting surface, I cut outward radial slits into the film "over-sized area" around the peripheral of the card stock rings at 1/2" intervals. This allows one to fold these "flaps" of film onto the sides of the tubes and double sided tape, to tape everything together. A few more layers of silvered Mylar tape were wrapped around these flaps to seal everything up.Complete totality was observed from Franklin, MO, which is on the center line of totality for the GAE and provided us 2m 39s of viewing. The local weather conditions were slightly hazy, and so we were able to make out detail on the surface of the moon due to the slight dimming of the Corona. It was the most amazing astronomical convergence I've ever seen. If you missed it, you really missed it.

nice sheet of material which can be cut and taped on filter holders for my cameras. The filter does a good job of filtering sun's energy to a point it can be comfortably viewed by eyes. The sun appears to be an orange orb which is normal. If you're going to take photographs of the sun, use this filter and put the camera on a tripod. to get the sun pics. Exposing for the sun through the filter, everything but the sun will be very dark, almost blacked out. If you want some of the surrounding landscape for context, keep your camera on the tripod, then wait for the sun to move out of frame, take a few pictures exposed properly for the landscape and then stack all of your photos as an HDR image in your favorite photo editing software.

It takes little effort to make perfectly serviceable filters for solar viewing, and the color rendition when using this film is a pleasant orange-yellow. It seems expensive but goes farther than you think. A 10"x10" sheet will easily make four or more DSLR lens-sized filters, with probably more material left over for a small phone lens cover and a couple of quick DIY pairs of eclipse glasses.

I used this film to make some filters to fit my binoculars. I bought some threaed filter ring adaptors and cut and glues the filter using rubber cement. Worked perfect. Drove and watched a total eclipse for the first time. So cool to experence.

The second time I used this - there was a hole melted in the film - I have a 10" dob. I do a Cheshire and laser culmination before every session. I aim the telescope simply by looking at the shadow cast on the ground, then peer through a 40mm from a distance of 2-3 ft. If all safe then I will (with caution) proceed with my viewing session. In this case I kept seeing a glint of sunlight while doing the final aiming (again not looking through eyepiece directly) it's then I noticed a 2mm hole towards the edge - the film appears to be heat stressed in 3 areas - it mounts only one way on the scope - I live in S.Florida - but that shouldn't make any difference. Any ideas from the community what's going on here. I don't have much faith in this solar filter now. I'm not faulting the film - it works great. A hole appearing during a viewing session would be disastrous. I believe it's something on my end causing this.The sweet spot is not dead center in the primary mirror - can this be the cause? Any idea folks?

Purchased the larger size in order to make multiple filters - 1 for my 8 inch dob and another fir my digital camera. Has worked great so far. When viewing through dob, have not noticed any image degradation. Slight softness noted in image on digital camera when zoomed in fully on a 30", but yields great result if using an 800 mm or larger lens where minimal cropping will be needed.

The eclipse came and went and because I was able to get one of Thousand Oaks Optical's silver-black polymer filter sheet, at least 20 people were lucky enough to safely view the workings of our solar system. With the 12"x12" solar filter sheet I made 8 eclipse viewers and used the remaining piece to make solar filters for my binoculars. I caught at least three people in my neighborhood looking at the eclipse without any filters and relying on the cloud cover to "protect" their eyes! So not only did this filter material help some people see the eclipse safely, it probably saved a few people's sight! Hopefully I'll make it to an eclipse's path of totality one day, and if I do I'll be buying more of Thousand Oaks Optical's filter sheets. The image this filter material produces is exceptionally clear and the color is much closer to the warm orange most people are familiar with when we see the sun without a filter just after sunrise or as it approaches sunset (as opposed to the truer yet harsher white color of the unfiltered sun near its zenith and reproduced by the silver-silver filter material).