H-Alpha Telescopes

[fireguy1997]

Hello guys, just getting into solar observing and planning to get one of those H-Alpha telescopes that is able to view the prominence, flares and other features of the sun. Hope anyone with experience with such telescope is able to lend a helping hand in helping me understand the different models associated with these type of teles. Thanks in advance!.

[Gary]

Hi Fireguy1997. Welcome to the forum! You may find the individual descriptions of the solar scopes in this web link useful in your research:

http://www.optcorp.com/ProductList.aspx?uid=1-599-100

[superiorstream]

Hi,Fireguy
First some warning--obing the sun is very hot and if you cant stand the heat and fall sick due to that --quit--thats why so few obing the sun here in the tropics.
Various types of scopes to ob. te sun
1)White light ones.Its ordinary telescope with a SAFE white ligt solar filter installed.Normally a thousand oak at least type 2 for safe viewing the sun.Do use some extra uv,infra filter for extra-protection.
Alternately a continuum filter--baader 540nm,green--filter may be used but remember about prefiltering it to a safe level in both uv,infra-red region.Very challenging in self building it.
---------to be continued----

[superiorstream]

Do use the white view to test if you can stand the hot sun in the tropics
2)Ha view of the sun.Basically various brands exist for this--Daystar,coronado,lunt,solarscope,thousand-oak etc.
A seldom used high quality Ha filter exist in the science centre.These narrow band filter had to be pre-heated electrically before use but can achieve bandwidth of even 0.3A--expensive and basically for research and loaded guy.
Coronado USA produces various Ha solarscope--PST,solarmax40,solarmax60,and solarmax90.PST is for entry level while solarmax40 or 60 for general viewing of the sun.The larger the scope,the more detail visible and ALL 3 come with either the single stack--bandwidth 0.7A or the bandwidth 0.5A version;of course the smaller the bandwidth the more detail reviewed,but the price can be almost doubled.Also do be aware of one BIG problem when viewing in the tropics--dread rust.A certain filter in the blocking filter can rust till finally become almost opaque to the Ha light and the ONLY cure is to get a NEW blocking filter.So,far I had used at least 4 sets!! and they are not cheap!
As for the brand Lunt,solarscope do get info from their user in singastro.
Thousand-oak do made Ha filter but at bandwidth of 0.9A and my experience is that at such bandwidth,only prominences can be seen;surface structure of the sun like filaments,hot spots etc are not reviewed.
3)Another scope is the Cak scope.To be reviewing it MUST be 2.2A or smaller in bandwidth as otherwise,the caH line will be in to confuse your pic.However do note that you need to take pic/photo as Cak line exist in a region where our eye can barely see.
Happy obing and do your maths before buying.Those scope are expensive.

[shirox]

i'm sure chia's advice would be the best. He's been a very active solar observer hee.

[vivid]

I'd have to post this warning of CaK. Anything below 450nm gets pretty bad quickly for our eyes.

A 400mW 405nm laser can have less visual punch than a 10mW 532nm. But trust me it stings much more. Baader's CaK filter is 395nm with a FWMH of 8nm, technically UV-A. So it's basically for photo observation via cameras, not for visual observation (eg minutes at a time possibly more, multiple times a month, possibly more). Of course it's same for 405nm lasers and googles for protection (enthusiasts use it for longer range burning, in addition to beam expanders with 532nm....445nm blue is used for short distance burning), nobody is going to stop visual ob...but once damage is done it would be impossible to undo, and most times there is no warning signs.... unlike say exposure to loud music (ie tinnitus first).

I guess the draw of CaK is that the Baader K-line filter + Solarfilm is great value for money because I am sure most of us own decent scope at least (imagine a Explore Scientific 152mm achromatic! How much you are going to pay to have that resolution with dedicated solar scopes!), and gets you much more than just white light. Only drawback is that it's not able to give you "Live" images.

BTW if you want to do white light, from the reviews the Baader Astro Solarfilm is better than the Thousand Oaks. And be careful with white light, one knock on the scope by another person or a gust of strong wind might just blow off an improperly secured filter. It'd be like shining a big commercial laser into your eyes. Think optic nerve also can be chao ta....no joke.

Good warning about heat exhaustion for doing solar here. I actually wanted to get a Lunt 60 as well since activity is gonna be optimum soon, but then the weather is like crazy hot for doing anything > 15 mins. So .... Higher latitude countries are ok, it's actually quite an enjoyment to do solar in anything < 20 deg C.

Steam!
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6225/6344 ... 371f_o.jpg

Baader CaK filter
http://www.astro-imaging.de/astro/image ... colour.jpg

You could do some testing first, this is cheap but not sure how accurate are the specs (which are pretty good). You need to mount them. With a Baader solar film (cheap as well) you are good to go. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Optical-Filter- ... 23197e9ddc

But knowing myself, i think i just might go the Baader K line filter.... it's not that difficult for solar astrophotography, haven't researched much but you don't really need tracking, coz the shutter speeds are quite fast, i mean there would be some slight motion blur but not that bad lah. Of course, this is 80 angstroms vs the 2.x angstroms of the Lunt scopes. But then we are also talking about the ability to use our nice main scopes with big apertures. Cost aside of course.

BTW, telescopes.net has offer for Coronado PST for usd499 (original usd599 elsewhere at OPT, high point scientific etc) till March 31st. It's about 79 bucks shipping to SG. So there you go!
If you get hooked, you can choose to spend that 2k-5k later for better views.

Shouldn't miss out this one as well. http://www.solarscopereviews.com/

[superiorstream]

Its futile to look at the sun in Cak for even my kid had said that they see no nice structure when my photo review its existence;so why risk your eye.Just hook up a camera/ccd and thats what the scope is for--for imaging and reviewing yet anoter face of the sun.Thanks.

[fireguy1997]

Hey guys thanks for taking your time to post your answers and sorry for the late reply. Looking at the reply you guys gave, i now understand more about the types of scope out there. Now is more of which type of scope would suit my budget. My budget could range anywhere from a thousand to 10 thousand depending on which would be a better long-term investment. I read about H-alpha particularly the double stacking of the filters that could give a more detailed view, but now you mention about the white light teles. I wonder which are better.
Alternately, i was thinking of an additional CCD camera to take pictures of the details of the sun. Is there a scope out in the market that has it incorporated or would it best be an add on to the scope.
Thanks once again for your reply and hope to see your comments on this.

[superiorstream]

Hi,fireguy
If you are decided to get Coronado,do be prepared to continuously spend on the blocking filter if you live in Singapore for our tropical climate is very moist and the BF can rust completely in a year.I heard that in the US the BF is guarantted 5 years but in asia 1 year only--so spent continuously.
Another option is to use the Lunt brand and for that,you have to ask those with lunt scopes.However do note that I watch the sun EVERY DAY,and those with lunt I think dont--so disgest your info with care.
Both brands have a variety of choices and as a general rule--the bigger the scope the more expensive.
As for which view--white light or Ha-- is better;I would say they complement one another.In general white light scopes/filter are much cheaper,although the view is less reviewing.For Ha view,you can see prominences,filaments,CME--sometimes even see the mass clouds flying away from the bright cracks of the sun,flares--sudden brightening,and a magnitude of others like boiling structures on te sun.
Cak view had been covered in my earlier reply.
As for which scope and ccd,I think lunt do have package deal and so ask around and do your research before you buy.
One final advice--dont buy all at once--get a cheap say a thousandoak white light fillter and see if you can stand the heat first.If you get sick and cant stand the heat--KIV the project.The tropical sun is very very hot and so make sure you have the passion for solar obs before putting large amt of money into it.The reward is that NO two pic of the solar spot is the same and its interpretation can be very interesting.Happy observing.

[yltansg]

Hi,

I have been doing solar observation and photography since June 2010. I own a Solarscope SF50 double stacked HA filter, a Thousand Oak 1.5A HA filter (on a 80mm ED refractor) and a Thousand Oak whitelight solar filter (on a Megrez 90). I will be receiving a Coronado SM 90 (pre-Meade) scope double stacked with BF 30 filter next week. Have helped a school set up their solar scopes, used their Lunt 60 HA scope, solarscope SF70 on Sky90 and Lunt 100mm HA filter on FLT 132.

I have imaged using Imaging Source DMK41AU02.AS, DFK and DBK cameras. Also done it with EOS camera at prime focus. So far found the monochrome DMK the best of the lot.

You can find out a lot more about the review of various solar scopes and imaging camera at http://www.solarscopereviews.com/.

My experience thus far - taking the best pictures with SF50 HA filter with DMK41AU02.AS camera. You can see an example of animated gif on prominence and disk details at:

http://vimeo.com/37524409 (got home after work and imaged for just 15 minutes before Sunset

http://www.pbase.com/yltansg/image/141949693

I believe things will change when I receive the Coronado SM90