so the home base is looking pretty solid, but the eclipse highlighted some serious issues:
- mount incompatibility.
- we took two rigs and my anniversary gift to my wife was an AM5 - the annular eclipse in Oct highlighted issues with the need for increased portability, she didnt have time for the learning curve prior to the TSE, so she asked for valentines/birthday to be me learning everything about the AM5 and running it for her so she could just focus on imaging. I mean, seriously, how can i say no to that? especially when she approved my purchase of a lunt Ha setup. so the Lunt arrived, i used it on the AM5 and got the best of both worlds.
- enter the TSE, i get her set up on a small WO 70ED with TO filter for her to take her eclipse pictures and i found out that the mount i brought had a form factor that interfered with the Ha scope i intended to image the partial phases with! i tell you what, i can't complain. i just watched the eclipse and soaked that in, it's not like we got clouded out or anything.
- it was disheartening enough of an experience that i bought an AM5 here on CN and picked it up on the drive home. We'd planned the purchase and just sold an EQ6, so i even had most of it covered. This problem is solved.
- i know, i know. test all equipment before needing it to perform. i did all but this combo. i learned the AM5, mastered daytime alignment and even got it within a gnat's length of centered disk while cloudy. i know the WO worked on the other mount because i used it. we even spent the day before writing down focus rack settings, exposures, ISO, gains, etc for my wife's camera.
- portability.
- taking two rigs to the TSE highlighted the need for compactness and the WO 70ED meets this need, as do the AM5 mounts.
- equipment longevity:
- the WO, capable workhorse that it is, is getting tired. the fine focuser racks out, but doesnt have the strength to rack back in, so you fine out, coarse in, fine out, etc. kind pesky, but for the eclipse, we made it work.
- we're replacing this with a redcat that arrives today and this will be my wife's go-to scope. she's in the waning stages of transitioning from her beloved dSLR to astrocam, but the redcat was a good opportunity buy and keeping my wife happy with her gear gives me a bit of free reign on my own
i feel like the AM5 really addresses the mount side of the problems, being as light/compact as it is and coming with a case, so this is a quandary on scopes.
the redcat is probably fine with an aperture filter for solar, but basically useless with my herschel wedge. i also want to get a Ca-K wedge (also useless on a redcat). so it seems that the way to go here for Ca-K, white herschel wedge, and compact/travel Ha would be a 60mm modular lunt for it portability in a small form factor plus the ability to convert between all 3 types of observation/imaging on the road. unless... (i thought at first) a front mounted etalon could be put on a redcat, but that is out because a blocking filter wont work on a redcat for the same reasons as a Ca-k or white Herschel wedge. summary: the redcat is a dead end for solar viewing/imaging both. can anyone confirm? if so, this is my wife's scope and can be sold for what we paid used, no biggie.
it also seems like buying a blocking filter ($400-700) and a front mounted etalon ($1200-1900) to retrofit a 50-70mm scope would cost more than the lunt universal 60mm "from 2236 new". keep in mind that my WO is struggling with a heavy image train (dSLR + T rings and spacers + ES focal extender), so i'd foot some cost in an additional scope if i did not go with lunt 60mT.
i'm basically at the conclusion that the lunt 60 is the only way to really go that gives me all three solar paths in a compact form factor. happy to hear if anyone has dissenting opinions.
