Exciting times!

[Ambermile]

*** DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME FOLKS (NO, REALLY - THE SUN IS DANGEROUS) ***

Right, that's the important bit out of the way. There are a few people around the world that I have made adapters for to allow them to remove the objective/tube assembly from their PST's and fit the diagonal/etalon assembly into 2" focusers. With the addition of an Energy Rejection Filter at the pointy end of their scopes (usually 80mm refractors) they then have a 3" solar scope. Whilst technically it's not that simple (there is some hacking of the OTA amongst other things) the benefits of this are manifest in the vastly increased resolution and brighter images at high focal lengths that 80mm of glass can give over the PST's 40mm.

Anyway. Damian Peach does a bit of solar work now and then and has recently upgraded from a 130mm Energy Rejection Filter to a larger one to use on his 6" APO - meaning he had a 130mm filter excess to needs. To cut a long story short I bought it from him and it arrived today. It now sits on the end of the Meade AR6 refractor waiting for the fog to go away so I can see the sun! I also, in the meantime, borrowed a tuneable Lumicon Ha/prominence filter (0.7 angstrom) from the Norwich Astro Society in readiness for this mod to try both it and the PST etalon alongside each other.

I may take some piccies of the scope later but I am rather excited... this amounts to getting a 6" Ha Solar scope for less than £1000 all in Needless to say I will be imaging through it first chance I get... 'cos I also have one of Astronomisers SC1.5 cams sitting here in readiness!

Arthur

[JohnC]

Good luck with the project Arthur,

[GordonCopestake]

Sounds like fun. I look forward to your images!

[Ambermile]

Pics then

Plan A, Plan B and Pointy End !

[iancandler]

That looks sweet Arthur.. I love the handle idea on the tube.. makes shifting the pointy end much easier I would imagine

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Great Arthur, I see you even have that bit on top for setting your hair on fire to light your cigarette off. I hope the clouds pass quickly!

Captain Chaos

[geppetto]

Yummy this is going to be interesting..

Nice one Arthur 8)

[FLO]

Looking forward to your first light report and some pix

[Naz]

Yet another interesting project Arthur, you certainly gave us all something to aspire too. Looking forward to your photos, should be interesting.

naz