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A telescope dedicated to observing the Sun's surface in the narrow H-alpha hydrogen band. Equipped with a filter letting through a narrow band of red light coming from hydrogen atoms. Thanks to this filter, we can observe the chromosphere, ie the atmosphere located above the photosphere. We can see a series of details of the Sun, such as a network of cells, fibers against the background of the shield, along with protuberances along the edge of the solar disk. We will also see areas of sunspots, especially bright spots known as torches. The PST telescope is an innovative CORONADO solution. This small telescope is another step that provides everyone with the opportunity to study and explore the Sun. It is an excellent compromise between price, simplicity of construction and service as well as observation possibilities in the band below 1?. The PST construction uses technologies known from the more expensive models of SolarMax solar telescopes. • Aperture: 40 mm
• Focal length: 400 mm
• Light: f / 10
• Switching capacity: 2.9 "
• The width of the conduction band: <1.0 ? (0.1 nm)
• Operating wavelength: 656,28 nm (H-alpha)
• Thermal stability: 0.005? / ° C
• Full lock> 10-5 from EUV to far IR
• Weight: 1.2 kg • A solar finder integrated into the telescope tube
• Parfocal focus integrated with most eyepieces
• Ploessl 18mm 1,25"
• A foot for attaching the telescope to any photo tripod with a 1/4 inch thread
(below: exemplary image taken during a test of the scope - click to see in full resolution; read more about the scope in a test below)
Preface
Before testing this telescope I've been a little skeptical, maybe it's too small, maybe a bit of a "toy". But to be honest, it was magnificent, far above my expectations and its compactness was bringing a lot of fun.
I have tested both visual and photo capabilities and will be sharing some of my thoughts.
Visual/travel
This solar telescope is incredibly compact and light, fits any backpack and works fantastic with a robust photographic tripod thanks to the 1/4" thread in its base. The kit 18 mm eyepiece is on the low side, but hey. That's how things are, my taste and insight suggests using a good semi-wide angle 6 mm eyepiece. I strongly encourage buying (or selling) it with that eyepiece type immediately. The 18 mm allows one to see the whole solar disc in a narrow angle, and is easy to appreciate the whole Sun but will not use the resolving capabilities of the telescope. A 5-7 mm eyepiece of good quality will do wonders with the Coronado PST.
I've used it with an Orion Tritech tripod and it was very comfy and absolutely easy to use, and watch Solar features. The telescope might be a nice addition for going camping or tripping, with the DSLR and tripod anyway.
Viewing the red-orange hydrogen-alpha colors with your own eyes is an intimate pleasure which only you can experience and feel as everybody experiences colors in his own way. (PS. you can see the h-alpha color when looking on a white wall through an ha-filter, obviously, but the Sun is more fun). The focusing knob and fine-tuning for the bandpass to compensate for the relativistic Doppler effect are both working fine and are placed in a comfortable way to operate intuitively while watching our personal star.
Solar astrophotography
The main question for me typically is: can I take solar pictures? Naturally, one can make pictures with about almost anything... but how will they look, how much of the field is usable, how does the illumination work?
I set the Coronado up on my working horse EQ6-R mount, with 2.4 micron pixel ASI178MM. The pixel scale of this setup was a bit on the oversampled size. Diffraction limit for 40 mm aperture is around 3", where the setup's imaging scale was around 1.3"/px. This allowed for trying to restore some detail with deconvolution after stacking.
A BIG downside of the scope is a lack of m42 thread. It is hard to understand for me, as typically most of the 1.25" sockets carry an m42 thread on their end. This way one could easily screw a camera onto the scope and have it tilt free and centered. Additionally, the plastic screw and 1.25" inch socket is much more on the toy side!
I've found illumination is not flat, but this is a typical problem of solar telescopes. I managed to make flats with longer 15 s exposures using a simple bright LED panel.
The result of the lucky imaging for a stack of 50 images selected from 30 thousand frames is
to be seen on Astrobin, https://astrob.in/vfikwu/0/
Gallery on Google Drive [LINK]
Enjoy!
Author: Przemek Majewski
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