solar white light/baader film users....

[Solar_observer]

THIS IS A WARNING....to all you users out there what can happen,if your not on the ball......

Pointed the frac with a home made filter (after checking it first) at the sun,did a little I observing.....no problem.

I thought hmmmm I would make another piece of card with a different size hole in it,too see if it made any further improvement too the view.

This is where I made a vital error,which nearly cost me my £140 eyepiece.....

I stood up and carefully removed the filter BUT LEFT THE FRAC POINTING AT THE SUN.

I was indoors 3 mins

Came back out and noticed a slight smell (burning smell....plastic smell) ,didn't think nothing of it.

Put the filter back on the scope and sat down over the eyepiece.

WHY HAS THE EYEPIECE MISTED UP......

then I realized what I had done. NOTHING HAD BURNT OR MELTED,the scope is all metal but I think maybe the coating on the eyepiece may have suffered too minimal effect.

I gave it a carefully clean and looked through it.......ITS FINE.....Thank god.

So THIS IS A WARNING.....be careful when solar viewing in any shape and form. ONE MISTAKE or ONE time when your concentration drops,COULD COST YOU YOUR EQUIPMENT OR EVEN WORSE .........YOUR SIGHT.

Just thought I would share my stupidity.

[D4N]

Yikes that was close!

Always good to be careful with any day time observing.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Pig]

I have made a point of always putting the cover back over the objective when I am not looking through the scopes.  it also stops the pesky spiders weaving a web

Even though I have wedge type blocking filters and there is no risk I still do not take the chance.

Glad to hear there was no damage to your equipment Skem

[Bizibilder]

A near miss - and good to hear there is no damage, especially to your eyes.  The Sun can be very nasty if you drop your guard, even for a few moments.