First light: Lunt LS60THa B1200

[AWR]

On Monday I treated myself to a new scope and mount: A Lunt LS60THa with the B1200 blocking filter on a Vixen Porta II alt-az mount. Today I managed to spend an hour of quality time with them.

My interest in solar viewing was first piqued at SGL6, looking through the PSTs that were set up. This was furthered at chez Olly over the summer where we did a little imaging through the same scope and Olly tried valiantly to explain his "simple" processing.

The mount comes in an enormous looking box; the head of the mount is very well protected inside. The mount itself feels much lighter than my old EQ3-2 (the counterweights may have something to do with that). There is a remarkable similarity between the legs on both tripods (the EQ3-2 is copied from a Vixen design) but the Vixen tripod is just so much better - it's much more stable in use. One nice feature with the mount is the two allen keys stored neatly below the rubber top of the mount.

The scope comes in a nice foam-lined metal flight case, with plenty of space for storing further accessories. I bought a Vixen style dovetail plate and a TV Sol Searcher (neither included) and both fixed to the clamshell with no fuss whatsoever. There is a well made screw-on cap for the objective lens, whereas the eyepiece holder is protected with a rather fiddly push-in plastic cap. The scope fixes easily to the mount and it is simple to carry them both together. The storage/transit length of the scope is reduced because the diagonal needs to slide out from the focusser about 30mm when in use.

The sol-searcher makes finding the sun very simple. You may think that finding the sun should be trivial (there it is!) but lining up my Mak with white light filter by looking at its shadow took a bit of practice. With the sol-searcher it took seconds.

I started with my 15mm plossl and immediately knew that I had made a good purchase. The focusser was easy to use and proms and filaments were instantly visible. I switched to my 9mm planetary and the view was even better. A long filament snaking away from a dark sunspot kept me glued to the eyepiece. The slow motion controls on the mount made keeping the sun in view very simple. I found that I didn't need to touch the tuning wheel when viewing the surface of the sun: the view was best when it was left where it was. Moving the wheel to the left slightly, improved the prominences slighty however. I tried my 6mm Delos but it was too heavy! It upset the balance of the scope, pulling it upwards. The focusser wasn't too happy either. If the sun had been higher in the sky then I might have had some real problems. The view wasn't great through the 6mm - certainly no better than through the 9mm! I'm not certain whether this is due to the seeing (Lunt recommend EPs upto 8mm) or because of the demands the eyepice was putting on the focusser.

To sum up:

Am I happy with the scope - YES!

Weakest bit? - the focusser. There is an option to get the scope with a Feathertouch focusser but it adds to the cost (£££!). Maybe I'll upgrade the focusser, maybe I just won't use the Delos.

Am I happy with the mount? - YES. I hope to use the mount with my 127 too (I've sold my EQ3-2:)).

The future? - A tracking mount and an IS camera.

Andrew

[ampleamp]

Nice review on the Lunt. I have just posted in equipment/scopes about a Coronado SolarMax II 60mm that I recently purchased. Your scope was the obvious alternate and tbh the only thing that stopped me on Lunt was that I had previously owned a 40mm Coronado. From what I read about the Lunt at the time, most people seem to rate it highly.

Interesting you say about your focuser being the weakest point. I am hoping that I can get a Moonlite for mine as I also think that this is a weak point.

[ollypenrice]

Hi, pleasant surprize! I'm glad you enjoyed the Lunt at my place. I think it's a great scope and I agree entirely with your findings. The Crayford is only just OK, the 2 speed on mine being frequently just a one speed. I keep meaning to see if a Baader Steeltrack is available because one of those is working well here on the 14 nch ODK.

I use an 8mm Radian in ours and, like you, I find that it won't take any more. I'm happy with 8.

Olly

[A McEwan]

Andrew, that will be a very rewarding H-a solr setup for you - congratulations!

You will probably find that there's quite a lot of travel in the tuner. Don't be afraid of it - it has definite stops at either end so explore the full range. You will need to refocus after adjusting the tuning.

My Lunts have been able to go up to a 6mm eyepice visually, when the seeing was good.

The standard focuser on mine is great, but when I originally got it the focuser was very bad. I had to get it replaced it was so poor. Shows that there's a lot of variation on QC on the focusers. It's a standard GSO so you could strip it down and have a go at tuning it yourself if you feel disatisfied with it. (GSO Focuser)

Enjoy your new setup!

Ant

[AWR]

Ant, Thanks for the advice. The focusser seems fine with my TS planetary, it was just the weight of the Delos which gave it some grief. I'm not sure about stripping it down myself yet.

Olly, Let me know how you get on if you upgrade to a Baader focusser. Presumably it will be cheaper than the Feathertouch!

Andrew