What do I need, to start some solar photography...

[Takahashi]

...besides my existing scope & dSLR? I'm assuming some form of safety filter, besides specific bandpass ones? I like the idea of solar observing, but the thought of photographing our Sun in many different wavelengths is a fascinating prospect!

Thanks in advance guys,

Ivor.

[EDIT]

Sorry, I just realised I posted this in the "Observing" category... can a mod/admin move it to "Solar / Lunar photography"? Thanks.

[Merlin66]

A Baader Film white light solar filter will get you started.

It will allow you to image sunspots.

To get a narrow band solar filter you need to spend $$$$$

The CaK filter ( down in the Blue/UV - The DSLR will have a very low efficiency down here) is around 250gbp and the H alpha ( red hydrogen again an area of low efficiency with the DSLR) starts with a Coronado PST (40mm) around 600gbp. The 40mm Ha objective filter is about 1000gbp.

I haven't seen any other narrowband solar filters.

Another option is a spectroscope with a slit, then you can dial in any wavelength!! DIY would be a couple of hundred pounds, a commercial unit about $3,500+

[ashenlight]

Hello Ivor, I've moved this to the Imaging- Discussion board for you, you should get some good tips in there from the members who frequent the imaging board

Hope that's OK

[Takahashi]

Thanks for the move, ashenlight, and for the info, Merlin

I must admit, I'm a bit disheartened by those costs. I'd already looked around for basic safety-filters, and the Baader sheeting seems to be the one to go for; excellent versatility and low-cost, but those narrow-band filters... blumming hell! Why are they sooooo expensive? I will however look into the spectroscope option.

Cheers,

Ivor.

[Merlin66]

Unfortunately is costs money and time to make the precision optics in the filters. The surface accuracy has to be much better than your average telescope optics and the setting of the filter elements to achieve 0.6A bandwidth is a miracle of technology!

Drop me a PM and I'll give you some insight into making a spectroscope....

Check out the Yahoo group:

astronomical_spectroscopy : Astronomical Spectroscopy for Amateurs

[Abernus]

I can't offer much in the way of experience as I am a novice, however check out my thread about my first solar watch and first attempt at solar photography. I used the Baader solar film and built my own (instructions on the packaging are very clear) and as you can see from my pics in my thread you get very good results.

I took the pics free hand hence the poor quality and also this was my first ruched attempt, I would suggest just starting out looking at the disk in it's natural white light and getting used to looking for sun spots and photographing them.

[Takahashi]

Thanks Abernus... yep, I'll be taking the Baader route myself.

Merlin, check PMs!

[alfi]

hi

there are more cheap ways to get some results when taking photos of the sun, you dont have to take the expencive route right away, like these 1.25" Solar Continuum contrast filter - doublestack - Teleskop-Express: DER Astroshop + Fotografie + Naturbeobachtung , Baader K-Line Filter 1,25" gestackt - Sonnenfotografie im Kalziu - Teleskop-Express: DER Astroshop + Fotografie + Naturbeobachtung , it may give you some nice results, and must be used together with baader film of course.

alfi

[ollypenrice]

The first time I photographed sunspots I did so by simply projecting via the eyepiece onto a white screen and photographing that. You see a surpizing amount of detail by projection.

However, your scope needs to be stopped down and you need to make sure you don't overheat your eyepiece. The cement holding the lenses can suffer.

It's a shame that the narrowband instruments are so expensive though. I have had a look through quite a few down here. TBH I found the PST view disappointing. A double stacked Solarscope filter pair on a Pronto was great, as was a dedicated Solarscope. Best of all was a big Coronado belonging to a sponsored Dutch club. It cost around 3K and was The Business. Oh yes!

Anecdotally PSTs seem to suffer from a great deal of quality control problems but I don't know how true that really is.

Olly