Review of Lunt LS60THaPT + LS50FHa Solar telescope

[durr]

This is my review of the Lunt LS60THaPT + LS50FHa solar telescope. The telescope comes in an aluminium box which is adequate for the telescope and can be used to house a few eyepieces and other bits and pieces. The telescope itself appeared to be well made and the paint job was well done. I have a spare Celestron SE mount on loan from a friend which took the LS60THaPT very easily. I bought a small dovetail adaptor from Bern at Modern astronomy which fitted the bill exactly. I also bought a sol-searcher which fits directly onto the clam shell with two screws and as already proved it’s worth while. The views through the LS60THaPT were very good and prominences were easily seen and brighter than I had expected. The Doppler tuner and front tilt mechanism is the key to getting the image right, It took a while to get used to the gradual turns that are needed to get the image right but eventually you get the idea. Surface detail was also quite good for a single stack scope and plages sunspots filaments and granular texture could be seen.

When I eventually received my double stack LS50FHa due to a mix up by the supplier I was able to see far more surface detail or probably more contrast in the detail. Again the need for getting the image correct in the single stack mode is paramount to the second part of the operation. A small turn of the etalon screw on the LS50FHa soon brought detail on the surface and the filaments were also very visible, I had expected to see a large dimming effect but was surprised at the clarity of the view. The view drops from60mm to 50mm when double stacked but does not seem to present such a problem.

The focal length of the telescope is 500mm giving a focal ratio of F8.3 while the focuser, which is very useful, is a precision Crayford which sports a 10:1 reducer. The blocking diagonal is a B1200 which is useful for imaging.

Well am I satisfied with my new bit of kit? Yes is the answer, the images are excellent and the telescope is now sound with everything running smoothly.

But now to admit about a few quality control issues, which I hasten to say was warned about.

1 One of the screws which hold the eyepiece in to the diagonal was missing and just by sheer chance I found it lurking at the bottom of the case.

2 The screw which holds the Doppler tuner was not tightened all the way in.

3 There was dust on the front and rear pieces of glass.

4 The ERF was not sitting flush with the front of the aperture on the LS50FHa opening so I had to unscrew the top section and seat it in.

5 The 10:1 focusser was uptight against the course focus mechanism and needed to be eased off just a tad, which when done made the focusser very smooth.

None of the above were really that bad and were quickly put right but I think that they should be spoken about.

I think Lunt like many mass telescope makers do probably have some QC issues and some maybe worst than others; mine were easily solved but should not really have occurred in the first place.

Steve Durr.