Personal Solar Telescope

Does anyone own or has used a Coronado PST. Are they of any use? What are they like for imaging.

Hi John,
there are quite a few owners of a PST on these boards. I am not one of them, but I have looked through many of them over the past few years. From an observers point of view, the images you get will be small, but have lots of detail - surface granualtion, flare and prominence eruptions. All of this is in the hydrogen alpha band, so your image is red.

In terms of imaging, it is simply a matter of replicating a set up one would use with any ordinary telescope. Even your standard DSLR like a Canon 350D etc can capture the image. The PST uses a 1.25" focuser as standard.

Hope this helps,

Seanie.

Does anyone own or has used a Coronado PST. Are they of any use? What are they like for imaging.

My club (Astro2) has a PST and we love it. Fantastic views. We don't do imaging but there have been a lot of PST-made images posted to these boards over they years and they generally look fantastic.

Bart.

Hey John,

They are a great wee little scope. I took most of the following shots with my PST and a webcam (either black and white Toucam or NexImage)

flickr.com/photos/thelunarscape/sets/72157594501286591/

There are a few things that are very annoying about the scope though.

1) Only 40mm so resolution could be better - if I'm using my 5x Powermate I usually have to use 5 frames per second on the disc & the image is quite soft. Much better with the 2.5x.
2) Crappy focuser with a bit of image shift at very high powers - it works though.
3) Tiny focus travel. I can get my webcam focused but no chance with my DSLR. Since mine is the new model PST there is no way to remove the EP extension piece to get to focus with the SLR. Coronado made a change in manufacture to stop people removing this because of the home-brew mods that were being done.
4) As soon as you start using one you get hooked and want more and more aperture and less & less bandwidth

The good stuff:
1) Great image quality
2) Though they are specified at <1A they are usually around .7A to .8A giving better detail - if you are getting one I'd recommend testing a few out with the dealer as they vary quite a bit.
3) Ultraportable and mountable on a modest tripod.

You may have noticed that there is a new kid on the block called Lunt Solar. For a little bit more you can get a 60mm H-Alpha scope from them. You gain twice the resolution but lose the ultra-portability of the PST system.

Trev

Those have to be the best solar shots I have ever seen, thanks for the advice. I guess Ill have to use my flexible friend now !!!!

From what i have seen of their imaging capacity.............they are fantastic.

Well worth the investment if solar observation is your thing.