[Matt Wastell (Matt)]

Hi all

This morning I set up, packed away and set up my new Lunt scope. The weather has not been cooperating!
My first impressions of this scope
- Great looking scope
- Quite heavy
- Everything moves smoothly: focus tube, focus and feather touch focus knobs
- Pressure Tuner is a ‘tighter’ turn but this appears correct

The scope with the dovetail plate was very easy to slide and screw into my EQ mount. I had to add counter balance weights do to the heavier scope (I normally use my Solarmax 40 with this mount).

Finding the Sun was easy due to my experience with solar scopes and the view right from the start made me very happy. A solar finder would be a great accessory 4 years ago!

I viewed without the ‘double stacked’ filter as clouds were always threatening the session and I wanted to get on with it. I later attached the double stack for the experience and it screwed on very easily. The filter will have to wait for the next session.

Even with a 20mm eyepiece you can see more finer detail compared to my 40mm H-Alpha scope. Filaments are more detailed showing terrific contrast that makes then leap off the surface. The detail around active regions (I was viewing AR 1054) was much more noticeable and a real pleasure to view. It did take some time to get use to the pressure tuner but after awhile this enabled a wider spectrum of viewing – easier to use than the little tuning wheel I am used to but as it is a tighter turn the scope moves a little when turning.

Due to the weather I rushed to look for prominences and only caught short view of a massive eruption – this was hanging off the limb like an umbrella. Then clouds…and rain…then beer!

I did manage to capture three short AVI’s after the first of the morning’s showers – they were average at best but show heaps of promise – this scope with the double stack will be a fine imaging system in conjunction with the DMK31.

First impressions are important and after a total of 25 minutes during first light I am please to say this is a good solar scope!
Attached is an image of the scope and AR 1054 (2.5 Powermate, stacked and tweaked in Registax V5)