Solar filament/prominence May 30

Dave --

I can't recommend one highly enough. In the winter I usually get in 4 - 8 night-time observing sessions a month; so far with the h-alpha rig I'm doing probably double that.

Here's a sketch of the same filaprom the next morning:



Cheers,
-- Jeff.

Excellent sketches again Jeff. You're using a pretty decent magnification for the size of the little scope . How do you find the image quality + contrast holding up considering the secondary obstruction? BTW, what do you mount it on? I generally use a 9mm or 12 mm eyepiece and a camera tripod. However, nudging the scope on a camera tripod is a bit of a pain at higher magnifications.
I tried getting some of that paper and colouring pencil today but Easons were closed. I'm interested to know how I will find it in comparison to pencil + paper.
This solar stuff is quite addictive isn't it!

Michael --

I don't think my eyes have very good resolution, so it's either lots of magnification or I can't really see any small detail. I often used 375x in the 16" SCT which you'd think would be well beyond our seeing, but it works for me.

Don't really know about the central obstruction since I don't have anything to compare it to. Give me a couple of months and I'll let you know (I just ordered a Solarscope SF70 filter, which is an un-obstructed front-mounted air-spaced etalon).

I picked up a used AP400QMD for the SolarMax (or TV Pronto/SF70) but my adapter plate is still in transit so I'm currently using my UA Millennium parallelogram mount. It actually works pretty well, but it's a beast to move around. I'm going to get a stone-effect hollow fluted column with a sundial or armilary sphere on top and use it as a sonotube to construct a permanent pier in the garden. Then I'll just pop the sundial/sphere off, pop the AP400 on, and do some observing. That's the current plan anyway.

Let me know how you get on with the black paper / watercolor pencils. I've got some white "graphitint" pencils on order which are supposed to be harder than watercolor pencils. We'll see how they are....

Cheers,
-- Jeff.

Don't really know about the central obstruction since I don't have anything to compare it to. Give me a couple of months and I'll let you know (I just ordered a Solarscope SF70 filter, which is an un-obstructed front-mounted air-spaced etalon).

Cool!
I see you're quite taken by this solar observing. How many weeks is it now with the DS SM40?
Mind me asking how much of a lead time there is with the SF70?

Michael --

Yeah, I got bit pretty bad.

2 to 3 weeks lead-time on the Solarscope filter. But if that slips at all I'll be on vholidays in the States, so it may be more like 7 weeks till I have it.

-- Jeff.

Michael --

Yeah, I got bit pretty bad.

2 to 3 weeks lead-time on the Solarscope filter. But if that slips at all I'll be on vholidays in the States, so it may be more like 7 weeks till I have it.

-- Jeff.

Well, if you're looking for someone to "mind" it for your Jeff in your absence, you know who to call....
Seriously, I hear they are excellent filters. Unfortunately, I've never used one myself.
BTW, did you consider the Solarscope dedicated scopes?