Quote:
Originally Posted by Wavytone
Ah Ok. I wouldn't bother with the small refractors - you might as well buy a pair of 70mm binoculars.
As for eclipse chasing... A whole different matter. A long time ago I had a Meade 102mm f/10 SCT with the tripod base (not the fork mount) for that purpose, a robust camera tripod was entirely adequate. IMHO it was the perfect choice - small enough to go on a plane, could be backpacked anywhere along with whatever you need, yet enough to do something reasonable.
My next choice - if you can afford it - is a Questar 3.5".
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I both agree and disagree with Wavytone. I agree that, a long time ago, eclipse chasers used and favoured small SCT's or Maksutovs.
However, this is no longer the case. These days with the proliferation of reasonably priced small ED refractors, eclipse chasers overwhelmingly favour small refractors with apertures in the 60-90mm range and focal lengths in the 350mm-600mm range. A larger field allowing visual or photographic views of the outer corona with some "dark space" around it for contrast is ideal. Portability is key. If you chase a lot of eclipses, you will invariably be subject to strict luggage limits when you need to use smaller aircraft. In Svalbard last March we had a 15kg limit. On light aircraft it can be 10kg.
At one stage I was using an ED 80, 600mm fl 80mm f7.5. Now I have switched to a more compact William Optics 70mm f6.3. FL=430mm and prefer its wider field both at the eyepiece and with an APS DSLR.
Some people love binoculars for eclipses, others hate them. They are hard to support and look through comfortably unless the eclipse altitude is low to to horizon. A diagonal or flip mirror on a small refractor allows comfortable viewing for any altitude eclipse.
I use an APS DSLR with a 1.25 inch flip mirror and a parfocalized 1 1/4 inch 16mm 65 deg eyepiece so I can flip between photographic and visual during totality. This gives me a 1.9x3.0 degree photographic field and a 2.4 degree visual field in a reasonably compact package. Any of the small refractors - Stellarview, Willam Optics among many others are fine as of course are any of the premium brands.
A Meade ETX will only image the inner corona 0.7 x1.1 degree field in an APS. A full frame camera will probably vignette.
You can see examples of solar eclipse images with the 70mm f6.3 and ED80 on my website -
http://joe-cali.com/eclipses
I used the 70mm f6.3 440mmFL with APS DSLR for these eclipses
2015 TOTAL with APS DSLR
2010 TOTAL with APS DSLR
I used the ED80 80mm f7.5 600mm FL for
2013 ANNULAR with APS DSLR
2008 TOTAL with APS DSLR
2006 TOTAL with 35mm film DSLR
Cheers
Joe