First Daylight with PST

[imarcs]

First light report with new PST.

After months of my time home from work simply not coinciding with clear skies, i went and bought a PST this weekend. Obviously the clearest night I have seen for months then blew in last night. So after a good nights observing we set the PST up this morning to a beautiful clear sky.

I was worried about mounting it properly at first but a spare dovetail and a heavy duty Binocular mount provide a surprisingly stable platform when attached to my Synscan Alt/Az mount. I was going to weld a plate onto the dovetai this week for a more permanent solution but I don't think i'll bother now.

Aligning the PST is a very simply matter. Just look at any shadow on the ground (Mount leg) and look down and ensure the body of the PST is parallel to the shadow. Once you've done that just simply increase the altitude until the sun pops into the clever finder window they have helpfully installed. I've so far been unable to trick my mount into tracking the Sun but i'll fix that later.

Mount aligned and i put the "K20" supplied eyepiece into the scope. Then comes the part that almost seems counter intuitive to start with, and unless you actually read the instruction manual, may not be apparent. You use the focusing knob to bring the edge of the Sun's disk into focus. Its likely at this point you will be able to see some traces of prominences. This is when you adjust the tuning ring at the base of the OTA. This is when i got my first Wow moment as three interacting prominences all sprung into view - Amazing. I quickly decided that the K20 wasnt that good and I have problems with anything that doesn't have significant eye relief so i threw my BST 25mm in there and was rewarded with much sharper views after a touch more focusing and tuning. I then put the 8mm BST in and to my surprise the views were even crisper. Me and my son then used the 8mm to patrol all around the limb discovering and logging all of the sights.

Ive read that your eyes need to be experienced and get used to viewing in Ha so the views get better with time. I certainly agree with this where surface rather then edge detail is concerned. It was hours before we could make out any of this detail, and i don't think it was down to tuning or focusing. Towards the end of the 5 hour (!!!) session we certainly started to notice more sunspots, other stuff i dont know the names of and what i assume were prominences viewed from the top rather from the side and look like dark smoke stacks.

Also at the end of the session i experimented with my Tal 2x Barlow and TV 2.5X powermate and i was still able to bring the 8mm BST into focus ok. I would love to try a un-barlowed high power eyepiece in it as soon as possible... Maybe SGL7. The crispest views were probably given by my 12mm Baader Ortho, but as i mentioned i cant get on with small eye relief so it didnt stay in the scope long.

My 10 year old son had a great wow moment when a plane flew through the view and left vapour trails across the face of the disk for a few seconds - brilliant.

PST's aren't cheap but i have to say that today we've had an endless stream of "wows" and "look at this", all the family and neighbours included. I reckon its the best value scope in my collection at the moment, i hope it doesnt wear off. :-)

[David Smith]

Hope to get myself one of these later in the year myself. You haven't done anything to put me off!!!

Interested to hear how you get on in future sessions. Can you see the full solar disk with the right eyepiece? Though I had heard it said that you could not but probably wrong.

Glad you had such a good experience, sure it will continue to supply the wow factor for many years with the solar maximum on the horizon.

[Merlin66]

A 10mm eyepiece gives great views with the PST!

Just takes practise to tune the Ha and the focus......

[imarcs]

A 10mm eyepiece gives great views with the PST!

Just takes practise to tune the Ha and the focus......

Amen

But now i want to mod it......