When I gaze up into the night sky, choosing the most beautiful object to watch or image is not easy: Planets, galaxies, different types of nebulae, we can even see a quasar, although it just looks like just a speck in space.

But most of all, my eyes turn to the Moon, our Moon. It is gorgeous, huge, brights and shows lots of detail. And as we see the Moon phases come and go, the shadows thrown by the Moon surface make you see something different on the Moon every single day.

The problem with the Moon is that it is bright, almost too bright. Looking at a full Moon actually hurts my eyes. Amateur astronomers do not even bother going out at night as the Moon will outshine most other objects. The Moon just ruins taking images from anything else but the Moon and the planets (unless you use narrowband filters).

Additionally, the difference in brightness just after the new Moon and before the full Moon is so huge that in order to really appreciate it. We need something to tame the brightness.

Taming the moon

That is what filters do for us: they filter light. Most often they filter colors, but there are filters to control brightness also. For me, variable polarizing filters are a must-have in order to be able to appreciate the Moon at any given night.

You can control how much brightness is filtered by turning one filter over the other. They allow us to adapt to where the Moon is in its phase-cycle.

I would consider this a must-have, as to whether you will want to admit it or not, you will keep on looking at the Moon. And no matter who will ask you if they can have a look through your telescope, they will want to see the Moon first.