Solar imaging solves the problem of always being asleep during the day and imaging at night (what AP guy actually has a day job? heh). I wanted to play around a little with solar and see if I liked it. If I do, of course there are dedicated Ha and Ck solar telescopes which are fairly expensive that I can use to do some pretty impressive solar work. For now though, I purchased a Thousand Oakes full aperture glass solar filter for my main scope to see what it could do and here is my first attempt at solar imaging:
But just an image is not enough, I need to learn something:
So off I go researching sunspots, they have numbers you know 🙂 Not only is solar imaging fun and a great way to use your equipment during the day, but it also can help you learn more about the stars. When you are imaging thousands of stars at night it is hard to think about what all is happening on the surface of each star. With solar imaging you can watch the sunspots move across the face and know that the sun is just as much a living thing as you are.
It also makes a fantastic outreach tool as sometimes it is difficult to get people together after dark, particularly children and their parents. If you want a great use of this for outreach, any DSLR with live view becomes and excellent real time solar image capture device which can easily be put on a computer screen. You can also use any video camera you can attach to a eyepiece or telescope as solar imaging cameras.
I simply bought a nice glass solar filter for my primary imaging system and added some solar observing glasses to create an excellent solar photography kit.
Hope you enjoyed my first attempt at solar imaging!
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