AST Mt Canopus Solar Observation Day Sunday August 14th
A good time was had by the small crowd of dedicated AST(Astronomical Society of Tasmania) members ad a few members of the public including a bus load of university students from nearby Hobart.
The Mt canopus Observatory sits above the Eastern Shore of the Derwent River overlooking Hobart. Its suitability as a observation location is continually under threat and gradually eroded by the encroaching urban sprawl so its relocation may be on the cards in years to come.
An array of equipment was on display. I finally got to see an LX200 in the flesh and Shevill Mathers had his portable solar viewing equipment but sadly due to cloud we could not take advantage of this during the day.
I thought given the controversy back in April when a solar viewing filter was spotted in an equipment supplier's catalogue that some technical details of the filtering equipment in use on the day may be of interest to some of you. The following are Shevill's words:
[QUOTE]I have been doing Solar / Lunar observing/photography since the 1960's when I was a member of the B.A.A in London and a F.R.A.S. To earn my keep I developed an aluminised full aperture solar filter in '66 (Published in the B.A.A. Journal), long before they were a commercial item! I missed a golden opportunity to get my idea onto the market first.
Solar observing with full aperture quality solar filters is very safe. The 'unsafe' aspect is that newcomers, visitors and non telescope aware people do not realise what a full aperture solar filter is - and that one is actually being used, to the casual observer, it is a telescope!. So never leave such a scope unattended or any scope when solar observing is being done in public. Always stress that Special telesopes are being used to observe the sun. I prefer using video cameras to a TV at a public function just in case someone points a non-filtered scope at the sun when one is not looking, that to me is the only danger/risk. For people well versed in solar work it is not a problem.
I use various full aperture aluminised glass Thousand Oaks or Baader Planetarium mylar filters for my white light views, or with my latest bit of gear a Baader Planetarium Herschel Wedge, where the telescope is used without a front filter! We are into the professional gear here.
For Hydrogen alpha viewing ,I am using a 1.5 Angstrom Lumicon system (bought in 1988) and a Coronado Solarmax 40 mm H-alpha unit 0.8 Angstrom (bought in about 2000), for disc and edge prominences. For highly detailed prominences I use the Baader Planetraium Solar Coronagraph Mark IV unit, (made to order and cost several $K), which blanks out the solar disc and just leaves a rim as in a total solar eclipse.
What you saw yesterday is a low cost system of mount & scopes that I use for outreach work. The two scopes are low cost achromats, a short tube 4" and a short tube 80 mm. The 4" had the Thousand Oaks aluminised glass filter and the 80 mm had the Coronado Solarmax 40 mm filter and diagonal setup. I have made an adaptor to tilt the Solarmax for tuning, which even though simple, works very well.
The mount is aSynta Sky Watcher EQ 5 with the two drives fitted as an extra, I bought a couple of sets and have fitted one set to a home made EQ fork mount for a larger scope assembly.[/QUOTE]
Well as it is written in Proverbs "where words are many sin is not absent" I will leave the pictures to do the rest of the talking. Please feel free to post a response on the thread if you want more info.
Beaut report and excellent pictures. I now know why David couldn't make it, too busy wrecking 51/4" drives!! Maybe next time! I'll expect to hear the motors whirring or purring at our next meet David.
I keep itching to get into more solar observing, I just don't get time! During the week I'm at work and on the weekend i'm spending time with the family!
yeh, phil, moonman and i convinced him to have a go last full moon. either that or i was going to send my 2 and 5 yr old daughters around again to play with his eyepieces if he didn't post!!!
