Posts Made By: Tom Masterson

Hey Steve.

Check out Paul Hyndman's website - www.astro-nut.com

Paul has a lot of experience with the Canon digital cameras - with and without the IR cut filter. If the website doesn't give you enough imformation, fire him off an e-mail. I'm sure he'd be happy to answer your questions.

Tom

Steve:

Check out the following:
http://www.opticsale.com/galileo-telescope-video-system-vs-1-5inch-monitor-telescopes.html

It includes the imager and 12V monitor. Yes, its Black and white, but you'll find a monochrome imager works better with CaK.

You could do a search for 12V TVs or monitors, then you'd nned an electronic eyepiece from either Meade or Orion. By the time you put the 2 together you'd exceed the price of the above system. I don't have any first hand experience with the Galileo system but I'd bet it would work just fine.

Good luck.

Tom

Nice Arthur!

Thanks for sharing.

Tom

Last year I bought the 17 to try one out and it quicky became my favorite eyepiece. I liked it so much I bought the 21 and the 13, the 8 is on my "want" list.

I'm using them in my refractors and my 12" lx200 Schmidt. I've found them to be "comfortable" eyepieces. Light transmission is very high and they have great contrast. In my scopes the stars are very sharp. On bright stars in the big scope there is no glare on axis although if you get the bright star just out of the field there's some faint reflections. Ther're as sharp on the planets and moon as any eyepiece I've got.

I think they are a great value and give them a 2 thumbs up.

Tom

Hi Robert.

I'll be happy to work with you on this to see if we can get your ready for the transit.

I looked up your camera specs and the good news is you have the controls needed to get some images.

Did you change the color of your image to yellow when you processed it? If not then you are way over exposed. Put the camera in full manual mode - aperture wide open, and adjust your exposure until the sun appears red on the camera's LCD. If there's ANY orange or yellow in the image you are over exposing. You may find that the image on the LCD will look too dark when you have the proper exposure.

One trick is to bracket your exposures. Just take a series of shots, one at each shutter speed. Then look at the results. I bet you'll find that for disk details your shutter speed will be faster than 1/160.

Hang in there. Post your results and your camera settings and I'll try to help you zero in on the proper settings.

I didn't notice if your Canon had a B&W mode. If it does give that a try too. If you get some images that are close and you want to send them to me I'll give you my e-mail address. I'll be happy to play with them to see what I can do.

I've attached one of my old photos taken with an Olympus 2020 2 meg digital camera shot through a regular eyepiece no special processing. It's compressed for posting but you can see spots filaments and prominences. So there IS hope for you.

Tom

Here's the un-colorized shot - more detail visible.

Tom

Jerry:

I'll have to defer the Nagler focusing advice to those who own them. In general the PST has limited focus range so there are eyepiece that will not work. Yes, simple eyepiece designs do seem to work the best in h-alpha scopes. I'm sure that's why Coronado chose a plossl design for their CeMax line. I've had very good results from using plossls - even cheap generic ones work well. Note though, that there are people using the newer Naglers in the larger solar scopes/filters who love them. It all boils down to the coatings on an eyepiece as well as the glass types used. Some are more efficient in red light than others.

The PST is a wonderful little machine! Enjoy.

Tom

That is good news. I sent mine off for the same problem at the beginning of the month. Maybe I'll have a nice package on my doorstep soon.

Tom

John:

Thanks for the report. I own the no-longer-available Apogee zoom and it too works wonderfully with the PST. From what I've read the PST seems to love zoom eyepieces. I wonder if its because the zoom allows us to pick the "perfect" magnification. For regular night-time use the big downfall of the zooms is the narrowing of field as the power drops. When you want a low power wide field you can't have it. With the Sun and the PST's limited field this is no longer an issue.

Tom

Steve:

I owned one years ago and was not happy with its performance. They are basically prominence filters. The bandpass is too wide to show surface details so the Sun's disk will be a blank red disk (except for any sunspots).

I've owned both the Lumicon and the Thousand Oaks filters and neither came anywhere near the performance of the PST.

Unfortunately, other than the PST - there isn't any "inexpensive" way to enjoy sub-angstrom, h-alpha solar views. You'll have to go with a Coronado or Daystar if you want more than a PST.

Tom