new ask on old question?

[Fatbloke-Dim]

Just got a Coronado Solarmax 60 . What is a recommended Barlow for this / Are my night-time eyepieces good to use on it , or should dedicated solar ones be used? Finally ,and most important before I screw things up thru' botched cleaning , what is the best way to clean the external optical surfaces?

This solar Malarkey is very addictive , be warned !

Now I can guarantee it will be cloudy all day ,too !!!!!!!!

[ronin]

Everyone I have looked through used standard eyepieces, the filtering is already done by the scope so all you get at the eyepiece is the Ha component.

As to cleaning then carefully, and use a good proprietry fluid/cleaner. Not the dishwasher or the fish tank. :eek:   (Upsets the fish )

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Solar H-alpha viewing is easy on the EPs for many reasons. The most important is that you have no chromatic errors, because you are looking at a single wavelength (plus or minus 0.035 nm). A cheapo Plossl will be fine, as will cheap barlows (I tried my kids' 20mm Plossl (15 euro) and Barlow (19.95 euro) and they worked fine in the LS35 I have. The only reason I use the XW10 in it is slightly improved transmission, and ever so slightly better contrast, so fainter proms are easier (and I don't have to nick their EPs and Barlow ).

Dedicated H-alpha EPs could be made with single coatings optimized for the H-alpha wavelength, but somehow I doubt that is done. It is probably cheaper to have a standard multi-coating applied than a special single coating.

[sungazer]

Hi, any good Barlow will be useable, but it will reduce the contrast a little.   As to eyepieces, in my opinion Plossls are  the most suitable.   Always clean VERY carefully with proper optical cleaner, though you should not need to do this very often. John.

[Fatbloke-Dim]

Thanx all  , good advice , for sure. Just wondered was all , tried the El Cheapo 6.5mm Plossl that came with with my Skywatcher 200 Newt , and found it a bit "soft" at best , crappy at worst .   Not surprising  , really... Now going shopping for a few quality ep's , for this , and thought if they'd do in the SolarMax , then I win all-round . Result , then. As to cleaning , the objective , like any other precision instrument/item ever invented ,seems to have an almost uncanny attraction to dust and "Derf" ! Ain't that the truth?!

Already tried a camera lens fluid ,but bottle sez it leaves a "protective" coating , so I'll just leave that for the cameras and sunglasses ,then . Was advised a genuine Lenspen would be god ,so unless anyone has any warnings on them , I'll likely go with that .

Again ,thanks all for the input , and very prompt , too .