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Keeping it relevant to Ben - image in narrowband!
Last weekend I visited an Astro buddy in N. Qld who is the proud owner of Qlds largest collection of Lunt solar scopes.
From left to right (er, down to up!):
The worlds first double stacked 152. Andy Lunt came over with his engineer to field test this beast a couple of years back - I was there and can confirm that they are top blokes!
100mm CaK
100mm Ha Double stacked (A fabulous scope)
100mm White light (Herschel wedge)
Oh and their owner, Rob Black!
I was most surprised by the CaK though - absolutely stunning photographically and very cheap overall. Don't expect to see anything visually though, the human eye doesn't play well at those wavelengths.
The white light image was superb too, but the apo was not quite good enough to avoid colour fringing even at massively reduced light levels.
The technology in the Ha scopes is outstanding and is where the cost all lies. They may seem expensive, but the manufacturing costs are incredible. Daystar are taking a different approach and it certainly seems to be working for them although their pro grade stuff gets pretty costly too.
It's great to have so many opportunities for re-purposing old and ignored equipment like those big Skywatcher refractors and take them to a whole new level!!!
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