[AstroTom (Tom)]

Hi Everyone,

I have just joined this forum and thought it would be good to get some of my questions answered by other fellow astronomy enthusiasts. I have been interested in astronomy for nearly 20 years and have had many telescopes. At present I own a Celestron CPC 800 SCT telescope with equatorial wedge. I have recently started in the field of astrophotography too.

Anyway I have recently bought an Orion solar filter that covers the front of my SCT telescope and have the hydrogen alpha filters for the eye piece as well. I live in Brisbane, Australia and during the summer it gets pretty hot here. I was wondering whether having the telescope pointing at the sun for a long period of time with all filters on may cause damage to the telescope due to the telescope heating up. I am thinking about the expansion of the metal casing and the mirrors. At present I am thinking of doing the solar viewing earlier in the morning before the sun gets strong and also during the winter months. My primary use for the telescope if for the night viewing and I don't want to damage the telescope just on the sun. I may be worrying a bit too much on this but I am as structural engineer and I have to consider thermal effects a lot on the different structures I design.

Anyway I'm interested if anyone has any comments on the above.

Regards,

Tom