The Sun as you've never seen

You have invested in a good telescope and you have your busy nights. You observe craters on the Moon, the canyon Valles Marineris, the Great Red Spot of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, all the beautiful nebulae, galaxies of Andromeda and the Sombrero, and have solved them successfully Double Star.

But now, matter stars, one is missing to your charts. The only star of the universe that you can not see at night. The one who has the power to destroy your hardware. The one that no one can look directly to without fear of not being able to watch anything on forever.

To attach the star to your charts, you will have anything other than a cheap flimsy mylar sheet before placing your telescope ... at your own risk. The Sun leaves to observe that at certain wavelengths very special light emitted during the electronic recombination of hydrogen atoms is the H alpha spectral line.

On garnet red, H alpha light allows you to see clearly the projections, the convection cells and sunspots. When one has in mind the gigantic proportions of what is observed and that, despite this, every hour sees dynamically alter the solar landscape, one never tires of being appreciative.

To those who wonder whether the acquisition of a specialized instrument in the observation of a single star worth the cost, I would answer yes without hesitation.

Due to its extreme specialization, the Coronado PST (Personal Solar Telescope) is a cousin of a very simple instrument refractor. Its one-piece design contains a lens, the H alpha filter and a Herschel pentagonal prism that provides optical security. Side settings, the possibilities are limited: the development of focal is via a small dial on the bottom that acts on the Herschel prism and a ring at the base of the optical tube can play on the H alpha filter to to optimize the image contrast. The instrument comes with a 20mm eyepiece (31.75 mm) which allows a complete view of the solar disk with its protuberances. I think we should also be able to use "night" eye or even a barlow x2, but I'm not sure we can deviate much from 20 mm focal adjustment.

The telescope attaches to a photographic tripod not supplied. Would into an alt-azimuth whose setting is easy to change and stable because the course of the Sun in the sky is fast.

The pointing of the telescope toward the Sun is very easily via a white opaque pad located on top of the instrument on which appears a bright spot whose position centered indicate a correct pointing of the telescope.

The incident sunlight during the observation is quite embarrassing, I quickly acquired a screen / eye Astrozap door to PST for fifty euros.

The storage case is well made and the internal rigid foam protects the instrument well even if it takes a little force to make getting in and out of the slot.

Purchased 718 euros with its storage bag and postage free, it's a good deal.

Good sun!