David Gede Reviews

I have been doing white light solar observing for about 5 years. I enjoy watching sunspots evolve over a period of time. I never had a lot of interest in the h-alpha equipment out there. That was until I could actually afford a piece of h-alpha equipment. After speaking with a resource at Anacortes I decided to go ahead purchase this little scope. I had no illusions about the quality of the image I was going to get. I knew there were issues with the image being small and in some cases even having a ghost image around the limb. I set up the PST on a good camera mount. The nice little embedded sol ranger had the sun in the fov in nothing flat. I put in the 12mm eyepiece that came with it and held my breath. As I focused the image I could not believe what I was seeing. Prominences. Three of them. Hanging right off the limb. With a small twist of the tuning ring, I found amazing detail on the surface. Sun spots were no longer the focus. The amazing detail of the faculae, prominences and flares blew me away. As I watched the prominences seemed to disappear. I found that as the image moved away from the center it changed. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. But a simple tap of the scope to re-center the image brought back all the subtle detail. The double image was there but did not cause me any trouble. It was not bright enough to wash out the prominences. In fact, if I had not been looking for it, I doubt I would have even noticed it. I have used everything from a 40mm plossl to a 6mm Radian and all gave great images. Thanks to the PST, I will now get no sleep at star parties.