What I've never done is look at the sun with a telescope and that's because it is extremely dangerous, it would blind you in an instant.
When I was a kid I used to burn ants using nothing more than the power of the sun and a magnifying glass (my granddad taught me this). You can see the bright point of light burning everything it touches like a mega strength laser from a James Bond movie. This is how I imagine what the sun shining through a telescope would be like. The bright point of light from the eye piece would burn a hole through your eye, then your head and continue burning the trees and anything else in it's path.
So, I never looked through a telescope at the sun...until I brought some very special solar film. The one piece of A4 solar film looks like very thin kitchen foil but it very delicate and lets through 2% light. With the foil and a CD spindle tub lid (normally found containing blank CDs) I made a sun filter which fits snuggly over the ETX telescope.
Hooking up the webcam this is what I took.
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| A sun spot. You can also see different surface detail. This is my first and favourite sun photo |
These following images are of the same sun spot on the same day a couple of weeks after the image above was taken. To me it looks like the same sun spot.
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| Taken with the x2 barlow lens. I got a bit of dirt in there too noticeable by the big smudge. |
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| Maybe a couple of minutes later and the same spot looks different |
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