Quote:
Originally Posted by iceman
Barry some of those are not really big issues.
The PST has the solar finder built in. I know where the Sun is, I don't need GOTO to make my mount find it for me so I don't need any 2-star alignment.
Even sidereal rate is close enough for tracking the sun, especially at the short focal lengths normally used for solar imaging. The hand controller satisfies the need to re-center.
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Hi Mike
Wait till you try it.
For visual use finding, focusing, tuning and tracking the sun is no bother.
I thought the same as you till I tried it. You can't keep the sun in view manually and photograph it at the same time. You don't need a goto but you do need to track automatically.
I got out my old autostar mount and made adaptors for the PST. Did a fake alignment that would have been good enough to track the stars but it was no good for the sun that slipped out of view in a couple of minutes. That is why I needed to write a tracking program. I could not see the computer screen in the daylight so I next had to build a shielded enclosure.
My original aim was to take a series of time lapsed shots and make a movie of the prominences. I never got that far before I had to pack up after spending about 3 hours getting around the basic problems.
So if you want to take serious photos you will need to align your mount and track the Sun
Barry