My New Addition - Lunt35delux Solar Scope

[Purplehayze104]

Hi All

Well i went to the Astronomy Show in Warwick last weekend, my first show so was excited at going and seeing all them lovely telescopes that well, look a lot larger than they do on tinterweb, after a few hours my wallet started to sweat as i found Widescreen centres Lunt solar scopes to admire, the misses was in toe & was asking me if these are the ones you can see the "bits flying off the side" so i told her they were & a smile crossed her face even after i found out the price £729 which was the only one id ever be able to afford it was the small but well formed Lunt35 in its delux guise, as i dint really know to much about them i managed to speak with a nice scottish guy on the stand that was helping out, fortunately he was mad on solar an explained everything i asked about the scope with confidence, even showing some of his images on his ipad well the misses was sold on the scope from then on, so went for a brew an a chat with misses about it. It wasn't my first choice of scope as had plans on getting a frac of some sort, then the voice of reason (misses) said why do i want another scope to look at the stars an plants when i have the 150P & me travelscope..... not that i needed much of a nudge in solar scope direction i decided that i will bite the bullet & get myself a proper Ha solar scope, so after putting away my slightly melting debit card i walked out with a nice shiney new scope . I know i could of waited an saved a bit more for the new 50 but at 900 quid was a bit to much for me. The Lunt35 delux comes with the B600 blocking filter (better for imaging so im told), tube rings fastened to a dovetail & a televue sol finder which is fasted with 2 allen bolts, and a 12mm lunt basic eyepeice witch is fine i mite add & a helical focuser which is smooth if a lil loose as slightest touch accident or not soon moves it again out of focus but will be fine for me at the moment but mite be a bit of a pain imaging.

First Light

Sunday afternoon 3 - 7pm, partly cloudy but not enuff to stop me trying her out, I put the Lunt35 on my eq3-2 which felt rock solid for once prolly coz its soo tiny (finally a scope that doesn't wobble) Well wot can i say except woooow..... i've never looked thru a Ha solar scope before but i couldn't believe it   the sun was ruby red you could see some major sunspots with lots of activity around it, there were filaments around/near these too some almost seemed to cross half way across the sun, the detail was amazing i had the biggest grin across my face that i've had in a long time, its nice to see the great images on SGL but to see that detail first hand & actually see the prominences & loops with detail changing slightly over the course of the day well i was in awe, some areas looked almost 3D near the top with a big curtain starting on the sun an going towards edge it was above the surface, was one of the best time i've had to date with any scope. I thought id try seeing wot view i got at the other end of the etalon so gave the lil wheel a roll & the detail faded to a wot i can only say reminded me of a white light view but a nice ruby red, you could really see the sunspot detail there was so many a few big ones on there own and a few in clusters with smaller ones around again another grin came across my face as the view was clean & crisp I love my stargazing to bits but think solar is beginning to take hold.

[Uplooker]

Congratulations on the new purchase You are now officially converted to the light side You will find it hard not to drag that scope out at every eventuality. You are after all looking at the most dynamic object we have to view!

Enjoy - I am sure you will

Ian