Dave Mitsky
24-August-2004, 02:44 AM
Quite to my surprise on Friday evening I received the Coronado Personal Solar Telescope that I had ordered from B & H last Monday. Unfortunately, Saturday morning was cloudy and rainy and there wasn't enough room in my friend Tony Donnangelo's vehicle for me to take my newest optical toy along on our impromptu trip to Cherry Springs State Park late that afternoon.
However, one of the first things I did upon returning on Monday afternoon from two nights of dark sky observing at CSSP was to set up my PST and have a look at the daystar. The PST is a 40mm f/10 dedicated H-alpha scope utilizing a 22mm diameter etalon H-alpha filter with a bandpass of less than 1.0 Angstrom. At just under $500 it is one of least expensive ways of getting involved with observing the Sun's chromosphere and its ever-changing array of prominences, filaments, plage, spicules, and other phenomena.
By 4:30 p.m. EDT (20:30 UT) I was viewing the Sun at the wavelength of 656.3 nanometers. A number of solar prominences of varying shapes and sizes were present as well as some dark filaments, one of which was quite long, and sunspots (AR 10652, AR 10663, and AR 10664). At the limb prominences were displayed very well and the detail on the sun's disk was more than satisfactory. During my examination of the chromosphere I used a Vixen zoom eyepiece (at focal lengths of 24, 16, 12, and 8mm), a 12.5mm Edscorp orthoscopic, a 12mm Coronado Cemax eyepiece which is optimized for H-alpha work, a 9mm PMO ortho, an 8mm Tele Vue Radian, and a 7mm Tele Vue Nagler Type 6 - all of which provided pleasing views, in particular the 7mm Nagler T6 and the 12mm Cemax mated with a 2x Celestron Ultima Barlow lens.
If you're at all interested in the fascinating field of H-alpha observing my advice is to place your order for a PST without delay.
There's a review of a prototype PST sans tuning ring at http://www.cloudynights.com/solar/pst.htm
Dave Mitsky
However, one of the first things I did upon returning on Monday afternoon from two nights of dark sky observing at CSSP was to set up my PST and have a look at the daystar. The PST is a 40mm f/10 dedicated H-alpha scope utilizing a 22mm diameter etalon H-alpha filter with a bandpass of less than 1.0 Angstrom. At just under $500 it is one of least expensive ways of getting involved with observing the Sun's chromosphere and its ever-changing array of prominences, filaments, plage, spicules, and other phenomena.
By 4:30 p.m. EDT (20:30 UT) I was viewing the Sun at the wavelength of 656.3 nanometers. A number of solar prominences of varying shapes and sizes were present as well as some dark filaments, one of which was quite long, and sunspots (AR 10652, AR 10663, and AR 10664). At the limb prominences were displayed very well and the detail on the sun's disk was more than satisfactory. During my examination of the chromosphere I used a Vixen zoom eyepiece (at focal lengths of 24, 16, 12, and 8mm), a 12.5mm Edscorp orthoscopic, a 12mm Coronado Cemax eyepiece which is optimized for H-alpha work, a 9mm PMO ortho, an 8mm Tele Vue Radian, and a 7mm Tele Vue Nagler Type 6 - all of which provided pleasing views, in particular the 7mm Nagler T6 and the 12mm Cemax mated with a 2x Celestron Ultima Barlow lens.
If you're at all interested in the fascinating field of H-alpha observing my advice is to place your order for a PST without delay.
There's a review of a prototype PST sans tuning ring at http://www.cloudynights.com/solar/pst.htm
Dave Mitsky