Best Solar Images - Part 6

Equipment

Continuing my recent "Best Solar Images" posts one more time I thought it would be good to include pictures of the equipment used to make all previously posted solar images.

The next picture shows my Lunt 100mm solar telescope on its solid Software Bisque Paramount MX mount. The cardboard box contains a laptop which controls the mount and the imaging camera: 

The cardboard box and maroon cloth drape shield the laptop from bright light. Otherwise, it would be impossible to read the computer screen. A live image from the camera is displayed by the camera control software called Firecapture.

The next picture shows equipment and wires attached to the telescope.

A closer view below shows important equipment in more detail. The red cylindrical device on the left is the ZWO174MM camera. It is connected to a stubby black cylinder called a tilt adjuster which I tweak to remove unwanted interference fringes from the camera image. Next in line moving left to right toward the telescope is the smaller diameter black cylinder of the 3X Barlow lens which adds magnification to recorded images. Finally, the Barlow lens is attached to the telescope where an eyepiece would go.

The white rectangular box attached to the side of the telescope tube is the Hinode Solar Guider which keeps the Sun centered in the camera's field of view. The guider sends repeated commands to the telescope mount to correct tracking if the Sun begins to stray off center due to imperfections in the mount alignment.

To the right of the guider is a cylinder perpendicular to the telescope tube. The black portion of this cylinder screws either towards the tube or away to tune the etalon filter within the scope to the specific red color of excited hydrogen in the Sun's chromosphere. The camera produces a black and white image of this red light. I usually add a slight pale blue color to the black and white images eventually produced.

It takes almost an hour to set everything up, connect all the wires, and get the computer ready. Often, it's a nervous race against time as clouds begin to move into fleeting clear observing windows. Once everything is working properly it's a pleasure to watch solar activity from my very own backyard!