AstroSolar Filter

The solar filters available from astronomy Ireland comprising of the silver foil.... What are they like? Can you thrust them?

Karl the 'silver foil' you refer to is the same Baader AstroSolar, Seanie refers to above and is very trustworty. However with all solar observing you MUST take the most extreme care. ALWAYS test with your hand in front of the eyepiece just in case a vindictive sparrow pecked a hole in your filter.

Can you observe unprecedented detail?

NO you need a very expensive solar hydrogen alpha filter or better still a dedicated solar scope to see prominences. You will only see sunspots (albeit in good detail) with any other filter incl astrosolar.

Can you actually see any movement on the solar surface or when prominences occur or do you just notice changes over minutes?

With solar grade hydrogen alpha filters you see prominences change over minutes.

Like Dave says, for 15min detail you need a h-alpha solar scope, lookup Coronado, daystar, solarscope just to name a few.

white light filters give a day by day change, and at that its subtle.

I'd go with glass, I just don't get that happy go lucky feeling from sheet filters.

I always look through my filter by holding it in my hand and looking at the sun before attaching it to the scope. A careful scan back and forth will show if there are any tears in the material.

Paul