Solar Scope Advice

[ApophisAstros]

Been looking at a few possibilities mostly Lunt and wondered if anyone has any recommendations?
something like
Lunt LS50THa Hydrogen-alpha Solar Telescope LS50THa/B600PT
with Sky-Watcher Solarquest solar go-to tracking mount and tripod
Roger

[Tomatobro]

I can report that the Solar quest works very well. I got one for the Mercury transit and it tracked well for several hours, even with the regular passage of cloud. I used it with a Coronado PST but  perhaps someone can help with the Lunt scope advice

[niallk]

I've a wonderful pressure tuned LS50THa - love it.  So much so I took the plunge on a double stack... and highly recommend it.  Costly though...

I would however ask a question about spending money on tracking - maybe save for a DS etalon?

I use a SW Az5 with manual slo-mo controls.

With the Lunt, I use 15mm to ~9mm EPs (actually, I use a zoom now).

Here's the thing: you will want to move and sweep different parts of the disc across sweet spot regions within the FOV.  It won't be constant and uniform, and don't let that put you off either! I'm constantly adjusting, and fine tweaking the pressure tuned etalon.  Filaments, plage, granulation, proms all respond to subtle tweaking of the passband centre frequency / Doppler shifts.

It has given me spectacular views - they are a wonderful instrument imho.  No problem manually tracking with slo-mo at the powers that are going to be practical - from experience using 52°plossls 

[Sunshine]

I have a 60mm Lunt pressure tuned, great solar scope, i would not spend too much for tracking if the mount will be dedicated for that scope, unless the mount comes with it.

[laudropb]

I too have the LS50 THa and I am very happy with the detail it gives. The only problem I had was the supplied helical focuser. I quickly replaced it with a feather touch

[Rob Sellent]

In a sense, to view the Sun in H-alpha I feel the question is to either go for a Quark eyepiece or a dedicated H-alpha telescope and to be honest I don't feel there is a correct answer. In general, one important feature in astronomy is aperture and this also applies to solar viewing in white light and H-alpha.

Looking just at the Lunt scope (50mm & 60mm) one will find that they are beautifully designed H-alpha fracs and work exceptionally well. They have the advantage of being solely dedicated to H-alpha, need no time to be up and running (great for 'grab and go') and with something like the 60mm, you will be able to see all the possible solar features that are in H-alpha.

I no longer own a Quark but evidently it is not a telescope but rather a type of eyepiece. You need an external battery and cable to run it and you need a refractor with a focal length between f6 to f8. Most people with a Quark use a frac with ED or APO quality glass. To this you may want to add a UV/IR cut filter and if you use a refractor with more than 100mm aperture you will have to buy a D-erf.

After 'faffing' - if you pardon the term - the Quark will give you significantly more aperture than the Lunt 50mm or 60mm and that should translate into a more detailed view. You can put the Quark into something like an 80mm ED frac and you'll have a telescope in h-alpha running at 80mm. That kind of thing in Lunt terms would costs you thousands! However, the Quark is not perfect. It has a 4.3x barlow in it, so you need a relatively short focal frac (f6 to f8 is ideal) to keep the magnification down. Also, accounting for Barlow, depending on the focal length of your scope, you will not have a complete image of the sun.

By way of example, if you take an 80mm frac and a Quark, you will have 80mm of h-alpha aperture but with the scope's focal length of 600mm and 4.3x Barlow in the Quark, you'll have a focal length of 2580mm. With something like the 32mm Plossl you will have a working magnification of 80x. Thus, the Quark is too often dependent on atmospheric conditions. What I mean by this is that on average one is generally only working around 50x both in white light and h-alpha. There is also the question of exit pupil. If your telescope has a focal ratio of say, f7.5 and the Quark has a 4.3x Barlow, you'll have a f32 scope. With the 32mm Plossl, you'll end up with an exit pupil of 1mm. Some folk may not find this too comfortable either.

This is certainly not making it difficult for the Quark but I feel these points are worth raising.

So again, we return to potential possibilities:

Quark + Refractor + Battery + Cables + UV / IR cut + TeleVue Plossl 32mm, more faff setting up, not much play in magnification range, perhpas not always a full disc, possibly dependent on seeing conditions but you end up with something like 80mm of aperture in H-alpha which would cost thousands if it were a dedicated h-alpha scope. When it's working and functioning well, this kind of set up offers more rewarding views than a 50mm or 60mm Lunt.

Or Lunt 60mm (or 50mm), does what it says on the box, no messing, no cable, nice and simple but with significantly less aperture and at some stage you might want to change the focuser which is a horrid little thing, espeically if you end up hanging larger eyepieces from it like a Delos or Mk IV zoom.

In my own case, weighing up all the options and even having a decent frac, I decided in the end to stick with a Lunt 60mm. There are an awful lot of sunny days in Spain and I hate messing about with gear. My general habit is a quick grab n go view and then back to getting on with the day.

Hope that helps a little.

P.S: Those with a Lunt generally seem very happy with their scope and those with a Quark generally seem very happy with their eyepiece.

Edited February 7, 2020 by Rob Sellent

[niallk]

30 minutes ago, laudropb said:

I too have the LS50 THa and I am very happy with the detail it gives. The only problem I had was the supplied helical focuser. I quickly replaced it with a feather touch

Good point - I too replaced the helical focusser: in my case it was for a dual speed Moonlight, which makes focussing a pleasure.

[richard ashbee]

any advice on tripod / tracker? on a budget for Lunt60mm imaging - thanks

[Highburymark]

On 07/02/2020 at 22:51, Rob Sellent said:

In a sense, to view the Sun in H-alpha I feel the question is to either go for a Quark eyepiece or a dedicated H-alpha telescope and to be honest I don't feel there is a correct answer. In general, one important feature in astronomy is aperture and this also applies to solar viewing in white light and H-alpha.

Looking just at the Lunt scope (50mm & 60mm) one will find that they are beautifully designed H-alpha fracs and work exceptionally well. They have the advantage of being solely dedicated to H-alpha, need no time to be up and running (great for 'grab and go') and with something like the 60mm, you will be able to see all the possible solar features that are in H-alpha.

I no longer own a Quark but evidently it is not a telescope but rather a type of eyepiece. You need an external battery and cable to run it and you need a refractor with a focal length between f6 to f8. Most people with a Quark use a frac with ED or APO quality glass. To this you may want to add a UV/IR cut filter and if you use a refractor with more than 100mm aperture you will have to buy a D-erf.

After 'faffing' - if you pardon the term - the Quark will give you significantly more aperture than the Lunt 50mm or 60mm and that should translate into a more detailed view. You can put the Quark into something like an 80mm ED frac and you'll have a telescope in h-alpha running at 80mm. That kind of thing in Lunt terms would costs you thousands! However, the Quark is not perfect. It has a 4.3x barlow in it, so you need a relatively short focal frac (f6 to f8 is ideal) to keep the magnification down. Also, accounting for Barlow, depending on the focal length of your scope, you will not have a complete image of the sun.

By way of example, if you take an 80mm frac and a Quark, you will have 80mm of h-alpha aperture but with the scope's focal length of 600mm and 4.3x Barlow in the Quark, you'll have a focal length of 2580mm. With something like the 32mm Plossl you will have a working magnification of 80x. Thus, the Quark is too often dependent on atmospheric conditions. What I mean by this is that on average one is generally only working around 50x both in white light and h-alpha. There is also the question of exit pupil. If your telescope has a focal ratio of say, f7.5 and the Quark has a 4.3x Barlow, you'll have a f32 scope. With the 32mm Plossl, you'll end up with an exit pupil of 1mm. Some folk may not find this too comfortable either.

This is certainly not making it difficult for the Quark but I feel these points are worth raising.

So again, we return to potential possibilities:

Quark + Refractor + Battery + Cables + UV / IR cut + TeleVue Plossl 32mm, more faff setting up, not much play in magnification range, perhpas not always a full disc, possibly dependent on seeing conditions but you end up with something like 80mm of aperture in H-alpha which would cost thousands if it were a dedicated h-alpha scope. When it's working and functioning well, this kind of set up offers more rewarding views than a 50mm or 60mm Lunt.

Or Lunt 60mm (or 50mm), does what it says on the box, no messing, no cable, nice and simple but with significantly less aperture and at some stage you might want to change the focuser which is a horrid little thing, espeically if you end up hanging larger eyepieces from it like a Delos or Mk IV zoom.

In my own case, weighing up all the options and even having a decent frac, I decided in the end to stick with a Lunt 60mm. There are an awful lot of sunny days in Spain and I hate messing about with gear. My general habit is a quick grab n go view and then back to getting on with the day.

Hope that helps a little.

P.S: Those with a Lunt generally seem very happy with their scope and those with a Quark generally seem very happy with their eyepiece.

Excellent summary Rob

[garryblueboy]

13 hours ago, richard ashbee said:

any advice on tripod / tracker? on a budget for Lunt60mm imaging - thanks

Skywatcher Solar quest great mount for solar 

[richard ashbee]

thanks

[nicoscy]

The regular AZ GTi, which can be used for non-solar work, is very easy to use. Just ensure that it is completely level (there's a bubble on top), go into the synscan app or handset if you have one, activate solar tracking and then just point at the sun and select "point and track"