Hello to all and a huge thankyou.

[gary756]

Hi,

Really new to all this. Bought my son a travel scope a couple of years ago and it's safe to say we are both hooked. We decided to upgrade our equipment a little while ago. After some advice from this forum and our local astronomy club, we took the plunge on an evolution 6. It arrived early this month on the very day it got cloudy, and its pretty much stayed that way since. Frustrated I thought a solar filter might be fun. Big bright yellow thing how hard can it be? Well how wrong was I, it arrived yesterday. Could I find the sun? In a word no. Did i almost blind myself? Well after my genius idea of using the reflection on the front of the filter. Probably almost!! Annoyed and frustrated after all it's a huge, bright, yellow ball of fire, it shouldn't be that hard to find, right!!

Decided to look for advice on forum last night and found some really good stuff about using the shadow of the telescope. Gave it a whirl today and after a good 45 minutes and just on the point where I was ready to use the filter as a frisbee. There it was, so have a good couple of hours this afternoon with the boy looking at the sun.  

One very happy boy and one chuffed Dad, thankyou. 

[laudropb]

Hello and a warm welcome to the SGL.

[Tenor Viol]

Hi - yes the shadow method is simplest and safest! Having a piece of white card helps

[JOC]

You can make a home-made shadow finder with a nail tapped into a piece of wood that casts a shadow onto a back plate - get the sun where you want it and mark on the backplate where the top of the nail's shaddow is - or for not of cash you can buy a simple solar finder - I strap mine to my scope with a bungee, but you have to adjust it with each use.  However, just as a tip - and it only works safely if you have a solar filter that covers the whole of the front of the scope like mine 

I find a useful thing to do is to take out the EP and look directly through the focus tube - with the shadow finder getting you close and I also find you can use anything that sticks up on the telescope to help, like a nut head it seems far easier to adjust the tube to find the sun in the mirror if you don't have it magnified, you can sort of see the glow as you approach and then big circle sun directly in the mirror - I have a huge amount more success that way, but you ABSOLUTELY MUST have the whole of the OTA covered with solar filter like in my picture

Edited June 24, 2020 by JOC

[sloz1664]

Hi Gary and a very warm welcome to the Lounge 

Steve

[Floater]

Welcome. Hope you and the lad continue to have lots of fun. 🙂

[banjaxed]

Hi Gary, welcome to SGL.

[HollyHound]

Hi Gary,

Welcome to the forum.

Hope you have fun.

Cheers

Gary (another one 😊)

[gary756]

Hi, thankyou for the welcome. Been out again this afternoon and pleased to say it was a doddle to find. Just need to be a bit quicker programming my alignment stuff. It doesnt half motor across the sky! JOC thanks for the tips,  am knocking up shield thing as both the boy and I almost melted under my hoody. Will probably try and add somthing to that to help. 

Looking forward tonight as fingers crossed it's looking clear. 

Edited June 24, 2020 by gary756

[Dave Lloyd]

Hi both, welcome. 

[Dr Strange]

Welcome aboard! 

[Pete Presland]

Hi welcome to SGL from Peter in Bedfordshire 🙂