Thanks Barry, I've been following that thread with interest as I intend to have a go at imaging down the track.
I managed to come up with a spurious reason to get the art class I teach in the afternoons to all take a look through the pst, which let me get another look in
This time it was mounted on a manfrotto jr tripod. The built in finder on the pst makes finding the sun really easy, so we were set up and viewing in three minutes.
With the stable tripod and clear skies the views were much better. The prominences were really clear and easy to see, as were the sunspots. The focus with the included eyepiece could only *just* be reached, but you could see the lovely textured surface of the sun. It is a bit like viewing galaxies though, the detail is clearer in averted vision.
Although it fills the eyepiece, the disc of the sun feels very small, feels about the same as if you were just looking at the sun with great sunglasses.
Will try out some higher powered eyepieces tomorrow and see how it goes.