White Light and Big Bins

[StarSapling]

12/7/2015 - Oracle, Arizona - seeing - surprisingly good - trans  fair - obs. good

20x80 Bins

Sol - Only a handful of small spots, located for the most part on the eastern side of disk - occasional good views of granulation - occasional good views of extensive faculae, principally associated with the handful of spots on the eastern side of the disk.

Aside:  I really do prefer my 20x80 bins over all my other instruments, when it comes to observing Sol.  It is the only one of my instruments that consistantly gives good views of granulation and faculae.  It may only be my imagination, but Sol through my bins seems to actually take on a spherical appearance, as opposed to the two dimensional disk appearance through my other instruments.

[Lorne]

I made a pair of solar film filters for my Celestron 15 x 70's when I had them, mainly for the last transit of Venus - unfortunately totally clouded out!

I got decent views of sunspots etc. using them since then. I was OK using the filters when out on my own but was never totally comfortable using them in public just in case anyone was tempted to point their own binos at the Sun without realising I had the solar film filters attached. 

[StarSapling]

I made the solar film filters for my 20x80's as well.  By lucky chance, they fit perfectly on my 90mm refractor too.