imaging the sun with a coronado pst

ive been looking at the mindblowing images on the coronado site:
www.coronadofilters.com/QuickGal/QuickGa...age=2&album=PST/

To take images like that, do you need:

a special CCD camera or just an slr?
a mount with a tracking motor?
Long exposures?

In my guess, i would think you wouldnt need long exposures, but i could be very wrong ( has happened once or twice!).

Just a tracking mount and a webcam + a premium barlow.

It is extremely difficult to use a DSLR with a PST due to it's tiny backfocus. If you needed to do that you'd really have to use a solarmax 40 or above.

Very short exposures. Depending on the magnification you'll be capturing at anywhere between 1/500 seconds to 1/5 seconds.

Trev

if exposure times are so short, would i even need a tracking mount? is there a tracking mount for the coronado PST?

Well, the problem is that you will be using high magnifications. The PST is f10 and even then you would want to use a barlow to zoom in on some details. I usually use f25 or f50 to get in close to proms or sunspots.

I believe you have an CG-5? If so you could just get an RA motor for it.

Trev

yea, its the CG5 i have. Kudos for remembering Trevor! i had better learn to polar allign and stuff before i start using a tracker motor. still very much in the beginner phase. Thanks for the answer. it explains all my questions.