Telescope Reviews: Re: Zoom eyepieces for Halpha

As for finding the sun, I used to put my sketch pad perpendicular to back end of the scope instead of using the ground or a wall. Then I'd minimize the shadow, and using lower magnification, the Sun would be right there. You get pretty quick with it with practice and now with my ETX70 for white light, I don't even bother with a lower mag EP and use an 8mm Plossl to find the Sun. I do the shadow trick and bang, there it is.

But, if you'd like to go with something less expensive than a Sol finder, I have a Helio Pod from FAR Laboratories that I use with my Maxscope now, http://www.dynapod.com/dyna-hp1.html and it works great. I put in my 40mm plossl first, unlock the clutches from my mount, find the Sun within a few seconds, lock the clutches and then let my mount track for me.

On to question 2, I like less glass so rarely use barlows. For your 40mm scope, 8mm-12mm would be a great choice. And plossls are nice for these scopes. You'll get a lot of glare unless you can block out the excess sunlight around the eyepieces. You can use the rubber eyepiece cups, a black cloth over your head, or make a cardboard sunshield. I use a homemade sunshield that a friend made for me as well as a black cloth. I also sketch on black paper for h-alpha work because I find that if I use white paper, there's such a glare on it from the sunlight that it take several minutes for my eyes to adjust to the dark view through the eyepiece. The moment is lost by the time I get my vision back for the faint details. Black paper allows my eyes to adjust back to the view much quicker.

In this photo, I had already found the Sun at the beginning of the session using the helio finder with my 40mm. Then I put my sunshield on and will have changed out that 40 for my zoom eyepiece.

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Erika
Automatic doors make me feel like a Jedi.

Zhumell 16", 10" LX200 Classic,Orion ED80, ETX70-AT, DS Maxscope 60mm
My CN Gallery * 2007 July - tracking NOAA10963

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