Show us your Solar Observing Equipment

[Tomjo59]

Just my two-pennyworth.

The square solar filter was made out of strips of upvc right-angled moulding, and two layers of thick white cardboard with Baader Planetarium AstroSolar Safety Film ND 5.0.  The whole is secured to the OTA with duct tape for security.

The off-axis circular aperture is 90 mm in diameter.

Not as sophisticated (and certainly not as expensive) as some of the kit on here, but it serves my purposes!

I find that the best magnification to use is  130x.  Any more than that and the 'floaters' in my eyeballs become too obtrusive when looking at the Sun's disk!

[paulastro]

Nice setup Tom, that's my sort of astronomy.

[xtreemchaos]

heres my solar set its also, my DS,moon aswell so 3 in 1, works well,but hopefully i will be getting a lunt LS50 at some point this year.thanks for looking charl.

[Purplehayze104]

my lil lunt35 for Ha & 150P for white light

[rrb24]

Here's my kit.

TEC MC250M for white light:

Double stacked Coronado SM60 on exBrandon 94mm Moonraker:

Sometimes an AP 6" Starfire EDF and a venerable 75mm Polarex:

Or on their own:

And from time to time a Questar:

But, hold on, when was it last sunny here?!!

Edited February 1, 2016 by rrb24

[Paul73]

Splendid Colection there Roberto. Love the Moonrakered Christen.

Paul

[paulastro]

A good collection there Roberto, it's good to see you're getting some use out of your Questar.

[durr]

I use a Lunt 60mm pressure tuned scope with a 60mm D/S.

[Drop Of Sun]

Here's my grab and go white light setup, Tele Vue 60, Lunt 1.25" Herschel wedge and ZWO ASI174  camera, on a Manfrotto tripod and mini giro.

For visual, I swap the camera for a Tele Vue 8mm or 5mm Radian.

The Manfrotto tripod and mini giro is very flexible with height adjustment, with it the scope can hug low to the ground and go above head height. I wish it was my massive garden you can see in the background of the top photo but it is from hols!

Edited February 4, 2016 by Drop Of Sun

[Pete Presland]

A Lunt50 with a double stack, this photo was from December with the sun so low I have to be mobile  

[trazor]

My 60mm Lunt with Bino viewers, the second Etalon is only attached for the picture.
The view through Bino viewers is too dark with the second etalon added.

That is why I have the second etalon up for sale.

I find that Bino viewing gives far more detail than Mono viewing, I would never go back to single eyepieces for Solar viewing.

The Denkmeir 21mm eyepieces, give me the best views so far, of any pairs I have tried.

 

[paulastro]

Thanks for posting Trazor.  I totally agree re your comments on using a binoviewer rather than one eyepiece - it works for me.

I haven't seen your ad for the etalon.  I just wandered if it was a 50mm or 60mm?  I have a 60mm Lunt and DS it with a second 60mm etalon, and use it with my binoviewer with SW 40mm eyepieces.  I nearly always use it in this configuration and the 40mm EPs give a nice view, plenty bright enough for me.  I occasionally use it with 32mm EPs in good conditions, though it does go a little too dull with the 32xs for my liking - still usable though.  Going to 25mm EPs is too dull for me.

I would also add that I always use a dark cloth over my head for solar observing as it makes a huge difference in what you can see as you probably already know.

Which ioptron cuibe mount is it you are using by the way?

Regards, Paul

[trazor]

7 hours ago, paulastro said:

Thanks for posting Trazor.  I totally agree re your comments on using a binoviewer rather than one eyepiece - it works for me.

I haven't seen your ad for the etalon.  I just wandered if it was a 50mm or 60mm?  I have a 60mm Lunt and DS it with a second 60mm etalon, and use it with my binoviewer with SW 40mm eyepieces.  I nearly always use it in this configuration and the 40mm EPs give a nice view, plenty bright enough for me.  I occasionally use it with 32mm EPs in good conditions, though it does go a little too dull with the 32xs for my liking - still usable though.  Going to 25mm EPs is too dull for me.

I would also add that I always use a dark cloth over my head for solar observing as it makes a huge difference in what you can see as you probably already know.

Which ioptron cuibe mount is it you are using by the way?

Regards, Paul

The etalon I have for sale is the  LS50F, surprised I've had no interest at the price I ask.

My wife made me a black opaque draw string cloth tube, which omits all extraneous light, yes it makes a massive difference.

The ioptron  was the mini tower 11, which I have now sold.
I would not recommend it,  as the clutch was prone to slipping, perhaps newer ones are better.

[paulastro]

Many thanks for your response.  Perhaps 50mm as a DS is not considered bright enough by many people, though I've never heard anything along these lines.  I would have thought someone might be interested to use it as a stand alone etalon an a small refractor.  I don't know if you including a BF with the etalon, but if not this may be putting people off. 

 

 

[Swisscheese]

Hey,

On the handful of occasions we see the sun, I will be using this setup. :-) A Lunt 152THa and I am using  a B34 blocking filter, purely for imaging, and a B12 blocking filter for visual. Great fun to use! 

[Pig]

7 hours ago, Swisscheese said:

Hey,

On the handful of occasions we see the sun, I will be using this setup. :-) A Lunt 152THa and I am using  a B34 blocking filter, purely for imaging, and a B12 blocking filter for visual. Great fun to use! 

That's one fantastic set up... when can I come and have a look through it ?

[AWR]

This my 60mm Lunt LS60THa-1200 with a Moonlite focuser on a Vixen Porta II.  I use my TS 9mm planetary most of the time.

Andrew

 

[Swisscheese]

2 hours ago, Pig said:

That's one fantastic set up... when can I come and have a look through it ?

I'm sure somebody closer by will have that telescope to look through :-).... But if you ever plan a trip to Ayrshire, your more than welcome. I'm planning a lot of solar outreach days this year. 

[Peter Drew]

Shaun. Gordon Ewen from Moggerhanger near Bedford has a Lunt152, (see Solarchat), probably the nearest to you.

[paulastro]

Andrew, is the Moonlite focuser easily available, and more importantly - is it easy to swap it over with the original focuser?  Regards, Paul

[Floater]

Uh oh! Shaun, you know what's going to happen if you get to look through one of these 152s ...

[AWR]

36 minutes ago, paulastro said:

Andrew, is the Moonlite focuser easily available, and more importantly - is it easy to swap it over with the original focuser?  Regards, Paul

Hi Paul,

I bought the Moonlite from FLO.  It wasn't on their website but they ordered it for me.  The spec is:

• CS
• Orange
• Lunt flange
• 1.5"
• Dual rate

Obviously you can have whichever colour you like (as long as you accept that orange is the best!).  It was really easy to swap with the original!

 

Andrew

 

[paulastro]

Many thanks Andrew, that's very useful.  Mind you, orange?!  A nice dark metalic red would be nice!   I may pluck up the courage and ring FLO and ask the price - likely to be the biggest stumbling block.  Mind you, I can always save up! .  Thanks again Andrew.

Regards, Paul

[AWR]

Also I'm 99% certain that the Lunt flange is the same as the flange on the Baader Newtonian version (holding the focuser to the mounting plate) but I'd love someone to confirm that!

Andrew

[Paul73]

From the sublime to the proverbial...

My gourmet new solar finder! £5 plastic finder drilled out with objective replaced with a disc (with little hole) cut from a plastic ball tube top (the rest is the shield). Eye end - chuck away one lense,  a couple of mins with some sandpaper on the other. Followed by some deft work with a Stanley knife to make the base fit and finished, rather stylishly, with some red electrical tape!

Works a treat - NB. You don't look through it. The sun shows on the translucent back lense with zero magnification.

paul