Baader film on 14 inch SCT.

[ollypenrice]

I finally got round to making a white light solar filter for the 14 inch LX200, using Baader film. I cut a ring out of 2cm fibre board for the main support and then another ring of thin ply to trap the filter. Six dowels protude downwards to hold the filter on the tube but I've yet to devise a permanent safety strap to lock it in place. A 'pinhole' drilling (about 1/8th inch) in the ring outside the diameter of the tube projects light onto a screen made of roughed-up transparent plastic box lid. Once aligned on the sun I marked the position of its projected image on the screen. Whether this will remain accurate as the filter is removed and replaced remains to be seen...

After checking the filter as always and covering finder and Telrad I had a look. Everything worked but the sun was totally, utterly and resoundingly featureless! Oh well. At least I discovered that my widest field EP, a 26mm Nagler, just manages tp give a full disk. That's good.

Nothing like a router for making circles in wood! I only recently bought one for the first time.

Olly

[johninderby]

I’m on my secoind router. 😁

Featureless sun. Tell me about it. Nice new HA scope and not much to look at. Oh well polarising filter arrived this morning so if the sun will only stop hiding behind the clouds. 😬

Edited May 29, 2019 by johninderby

[ollypenrice]

16 minutes ago, johninderby said:

I’m on my secoind router. 😁

Featureless sun. Tell me about it. Nice new HA scope and not much to look at. Oh well polarising filter arrived this morning so if the sun will only stop hiding behind the clouds. 😬

I thought of you when I saw that perfect white disk!

Olly

[newbie alert]

Once there's a sunspot on the disc that will all change, Olly be going all solar on us

[ollypenrice]

1 hour ago, newbie alert said:

Once there's a sunspot on the disc that will all change, Olly be going all solar on us

I've been a solar fan before but our Lunt 60 was damaged in an accident. Shame, but the new Daystar looks interesting.

Olly

 

[Adam J]

5 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Nothing like a router for making circles in wood! 

A statement that could only be made by a man who has never owned a CO2 laser cutter

[ollypenrice]

1 hour ago, Adam J said:

A statement that could only be made by a man who has never owned a CO2 laser cutter

That would be me...

lly

[newbie alert]

Think what he loses in handyman skill makes up on his images...fantastic Olly

[ollypenrice]

Still nothing today. A perfectly pristine white circle. Imagine if it had been like this when Galileo looked at it: it would have confirmed the Platonic notion of celestial perfection and then where would we have been? 

Still, last night was fabulous so the big SCT had a ball.

Olly

[johninderby]

The sun is playing hide and seek today. Look outside and bright sunshine then a few minutes later the sun goes and hides behind a cloud. 😢

[LukeSkywatcher]

This is just too weird. Olly in the Solar section.

Stop the planet, I want to get off.