Merlin66

Harvey, Welcome on board! Which telescope did you purchase?

Steve, the LS35 has a focal length of 400mm, hence the choice of the BF400 which allows full viewing of the solar disk. Using a larger BF won't change the view of the solar disk but just allow a wider field around the Sun to be viewed....... A big expense for little gain.

I always complimented my Dew shield on the 12" Meade SCT with a heater strip. The Dew shield helps to a point... when the OTA is pointed upwards there's always the chance of dew formation on the corrector.

Martin_S uses a similar set up for his imaging. Search SolarChat for results. https://solarchatforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=27829

Not esssential. A single stack still shows surface detail and is good for proms. As mentioned the DS greatly improves the surface contrast. Aperture for resolution, DS for surface detail.....

Thanks for the update...I'd only seen the 50mm version.

The Lunt front double stack filter seems to be a 50mm aperture. You end up with a 50mm DS system.

Luke, you can easily replace the defective ITF in the PST with a Maier filter. Probably around us $100.

Hmmm none of the label boxes seem to be ticked??

Check you have all the labels on and that the name contains no spaces....

+1 for the SW electronic motor and toothed belt focus drive. I use the same but geared it to the 10:1 knob for fine control...... I used a 80 ltr grey bin on a camping table as my solar "observatory" for many years. Hinged the lid with Gaffa tape and rigged up a fence wire "hook" to hold it open horizontally. Laptop and focus control in the bin, and the whole lot shrouded (including the operator) by a dark sheet. Worked very well.

On the ST-80 if you remove the diagonal you need a 60mm spacer in the focuser to get back close to focus..... This should get you close....

Dependent on the mount, you can set an "Aux Mount" in PHD2 which then provides the feedback on the RA and Dec........

Jim, Promising start.... I'm a little surprised it was a 40 sec exposure, I would have though much less..... What slit gap were you using? Around 20 micron would be a good start...... Have you checked the focus of the collimator to slit plate? With a large chip (DSLR?) concentrate on the centre of the FOV, don't worry about the edges (yet!) Softly, softly....I'm sure you'll have success. Ken

Hmmmmm sounds good!!! I haven’t seen any feedback on “special coated” BG38 blue filters.........

Russ, The Lunt "blue" filter is Schott BG38 glass. CLR cleaner (Calcium, Lime, Rust) does a very good job of cleaning this filter.

Maybe premature but not unusual.....?

Richard, unfortunately yes. Both the ITF filter in the Coronado and the BG38 in the Lunt are subject to failure. These filters form part of the “Blocking filter” assembly, the second element is the “sort/ blocking” filter which is a narrowband filter (usually around 8 to 10 A) to isolate the etalon pass wavelength at the H alpha wavelength.

The idea is to get the polar axis of your mount, when sitting on your "wedge" to point at the north pole, which would be at 52 deg above the horizon. Normally this would mean putting the base of the mount on a surface which is, in your case (90-52 = 38 deg) inclined to the horizontal.

The glass Lunt use is Schott BG38, this glass (surface) can deteriorate in the atmosphere and is prone to moisture..... the surface can appear cloudy.. I've used CLR (Calcium,Lime,Rust) cleaner to give life back to a cloudy filter.

Sounds like the retaining/ stop pin in the top of the tripod may be loose... Remove the head from the tripod, you'll see a square "block" sticking up, check that this is tightly screwed into the top of the tripod.

Also, using a x4 PM on an ED80 successfully shows you must have very good seeing conditions. On the coast down here, I’m lucky if I can use the x2.5 PM or the ES x3.

Russ, A pretty good result never the less... We've been under cloud for the past few days.....

Thanks. I was thinking of taking a surface exposure immediately before the sequence and superimposing that on the solar disk......

Adding an internal clip in Astronomik clear filter will allow camera lenses to focus. You do loose the auto-focus function.....