PST Question

[Albireo380]

My local Astro Soc is thinking about buying a solarscope of some type. I have looked at Coronado and "solarscopes.co.uk" and a dedicated 40mm solarscope is a whopping £3,000. So .... a PST seems a much cheaper option - to test the toe in the "solar water".

I had a look at a PST and wasn't all that impressed with the plastic screws etc. I have also heard that the build quality and overall optical quality control is variable. So, two questions:

1. How do you guys find them? Any problems? Any returns to vendor / replacements?

2. Is it possible to attach a DSLR for prime focus imaging? I have heard that to achieve focus a modification of the PST is required (???)

Your thoughts would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Tom

[Stardust]

I bought my PST last month and I've been really impressed with it. For visual use it's the best buy. I've had limited success with my DSLR, encouraging for a first bash and worth further trials. It was hard to see if it was in focus but I managed to pick up a prom and some surface detail. Webcam's on the other hand produce some superb images, not tried that though.

There is a 40mm Coronado on ebay that might be worth looking at, they are better for imaging, but 3 times the price.

DAve

[FLO]

Be careful of sendhand Coronados. I am told the the filtration and quality of image relies in part on an ultra-thin slit that can be damaged as a result of shock/impact. If it has been damaged, the image quality will be below par and the repair costs would be uneconomical.

Whilst I have bought and sold secondhand Coronado's, they have always been from people I 'know' and only after having tested them.

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

1) The build quality is fine, no problems at all with mine.

2) A DSLR will not work well as only the red pixels will be doing the work and that's only 25% of them. The best tool is a mono webcam or CCD as all the pixels can be used. Focusing a DSLR is nasty, even using the preview screen as it looks hugely underexposed when the exposure is right. If you have an RGB histogram option, that should help enormously as you want the red channel histogram only.

There are other ways round this DSLR option, such as using the green channel which has 50% of the pixels. The trick involves using the overflow from the oversaturated red pixels as there is no green in the Ha PST view.

Captain Chaos