Lunt

Annular Eclipse (Oct. 14, 2023)

 in Blog  tagged annular eclipse / Bob Yoesle / contact points / Lunt / solar eclipse

I guess I should have reminded you before the day of the eclipse, but I suspect most readers here were well aware of it, and/or unable to see it.  Although complete annularity was visible from my home in Santa Fe, I decided to drive an hour south to be close to the centerline.  In a total eclipse you want to be close to the centerline to get the longest period of time in totality.  In an annular eclipse this is also true, but perhaps the more important consideration is that the Moon passes through the center of the Sun, so […]

(A Sort of) First Light

 in Blog  tagged annular eclipse / E-Pro / Lunt / solar eclipse / sun / trailer

It must be about a year since I last posted here.  Much of that period was consumed by my move from Vancouver, WA to Santa Fe, NM.  We’ve been in our new home for almost 6 months now, and I’m just getting started on building an observatory in the backyard.  Until a few days ago, I hadn’t even set up a telescope here, although I have brought ‘scopes to several public outreach events with the Santa Fe Stargazers (SFS).  But there is an annular solar eclipse coming up in a few weeks, and since I haven’t done any solar imaging […]

Can we get some sunshine here?

 in Blog  tagged Lunt / MAD observatory / solar / telescope / Yoesle

The solar telescope I ordered months ago just arrived, which likely means the Sun will not show itself any time soon.  This is a Lunt LS60THa with pressure tuner and straight-through 12mm blocking filter.  Except for the “straight through” part (as opposed to the diagonal that is normally used for visual observing) this is a pretty common solar telescope, allowing you to safely view the Sun and see details of regions in the hydrogen-alpha band.  This is the same spectral line that I often use in photographing nebulae, but for the Sun a much narrower filter is required.  I use […]

Where Does It Go?

 in Blog  tagged iOptron / Lunt / ShutterBoss / SkyTracker / solar

It’s a phrase we hear a lot this time of year – “where did the time go?”, and it certainly does feel like 2016 flew by much too quickly, but what I’m really referring to here is that since I’m all done with holiday bazaars and other sales events for the year, I thought I’d tell you where the profits from my business go. First I am thrilled to report that sales were great this year.  I had set a goal of a 30% increase over last year, but as of this moment it is close to a 70% increase!  […]