Solar Observing with Binoculars and a cautionary tale

[mike.brightmore]

I've just borrowed a couple of 4 inch Baader Solar filters and attached them to the front of a pair of Helios Quantum 4 (25x100) bins. The result was surprisingly good with excellent sunspot detail. Surprisingly there was no colour fringing (CA) around the limb. Photo of set-up attached.

Now for the note of caution. A member of our astronomy group was observing the Sun through a small pair of binoculars whilst wearing solar eclipse glasses. Alerted by a smell of burning she quickly put down the bins and found that the solar film in the eclipse glasses was melting and the magified Sun's rays had burned two small holes in them. Fortunately no damage was done but a few seconds more would have been disasterous.

[onesmallstep]

Not good! Something similar happened at the Transit of Venus event in the summer when a guy turned up at the observing site with his scope and a pair of home-use welding goggles. Luckily cloud stopped play and the group told him what would have happened if he looked at the sun through his set up.

[parkes59]

Hello Mike,very,very new to Stargazing,just curious as to how much your binoculars are worth in Aussie dollars? Thanks Chris.

[mike.brightmore]

HI PARKES59, Current price for the Helios Quantum 4 (25x100) is £275 - its too late to do the conversion. Here is a link to them http://www.firstlightoptics.com/helios/helios-quantum-4-binoculars.html