Todays Full Ha Disk - PST Prime Focus 4/21/12

[Cschur]

Greetings solar friends,

this is a test of sorts, to see if I could capture the full disk of the sun with a PST and my DMK31. The plan is to use this at lunchtimes at work if there are any lifting proms or other flaring type of events during the middle of the week. to accomplish this image, the spacer under the back filter/eyepiece holder was removed and the filter was screwed back in. this shortens the optical path length over an inch allowing the DMK camera to reach focus, which is not possible with a stock PST.

This was taken around 2pm today, after we got back from a half marathon race this morning. The sky was clear, but the temperature was 87F, blistering hot and the seeing was poor. But I had been waiting a week to try this out, so here it is. I found that I was able to tune the disk pretty evenly for a fairly uniform filtration, and the huge arch prom was was a nice treat! So it CAN be done, and my first ever full disk PST results are shown here:




Comments appreciated.

[swisswalter]

Hi Chris

great first full disk and surprisingly even

[marktownley]

That's an excellent result Chris! I could never quite get a full disk with my CaK PST, always missed a slither of disk off...

[Derek Klepp]

Excellent result Chris. A great idea. Its always good to have a record of these things

[Cschur]

Thanks guys! My PST is very old, one of the first ones that ever came out. Removing the spacer tube for the first time was quite a chore with the locktite they use on the threads, but all is easy now. More to come I hope with this new "Traveling PST" Setup.

[Richard]

Well done, keep trying this myself with a DSLR, its getting there slowly (due to not much Sun at the moment). So a quick set up is the way to go. Nice image though... :

[brianb11213]

I could never quite get a full disk with my CaK PST, always missed a slither of disk off...
Same here, the disk is about five pixels short of fitting into the height of a DMK31 chip. Lots of room with a '41 though.

[marktownley]

I could never quite get a full disk with my CaK PST, always missed a slither of disk off...
Same here, the disk is about five pixels short of fitting into the height of a DMK31 chip. Lots of room with a '41 though.

Wooo hooo!!! BrianB is here too!!! You gonna like this place brian

[swisswalter]

Hi Brian

welcome to that wonderful TOS free site. Have fun

[Montana]

Excellent results Chris! I look forward to many more pictures!

A very warm welcome Brian

Alexandra

[Cschur]

Thanks Guys AND Gals!

Sounds like everyone here has a DMK31. wow, so popular! Yes, the original PST had a much better etlaon. They dont make em like they used to. Mine is a first year release of the product way way back. What I hope to accomplish with this is put it on an equatorial mount on a camera tripod, and do some full disk during the week at breaks and lunch. Dont you hate when its clear all week long and totally overcast on the weekends! Here is a shot next to my SUV, on this home brew equatorial mount, on the tripod ready for the camera: