One Good Solar Scope Primes the Pump

 After having viewed our solar system's star through a borrowed solar scope Karren and I decided it was time to take the plunge and get one for ourselves. Enter the Lunt 50mm THa refractor with a Feathertouch focuser. We had a devil of a time figuring out how to get it working the first day, but that was mostly due to our problems getting it aligned and the eyepiece focused into the sweet spot. After about a half hour we figured out our mistakes and had a great time viewing "Old Sol."

Today I popped a camera onto it and shot a couple of pics to see the recent activity. There is a lot going on on our star at the moment! Here is a series of pics that show how well this little scope performs. There are a few "Fresnel" type rings that are artifacts of camera scope misalignment, but I have to obtain a corrective adapter to get rid of them. More money for astro!

This first is a B&W pic that is truly as the camera sees the sun. It is a mono camera. This scope has a shorter focal length so it will show the entire disc in this camera.

Here is the same pic with false color

This is the reversed image in B&W

And the reversed in false color (my favorite)

As you can see there is a lot of detail of the Ha wavelength and it is fun to capture. I have to study and practice in order to get the chromosphere included (prominences and such), but the surface detail is extraordinary. Having a blast with the master blaster (the sun)!