SolarChat!

Today I watched the sun. The setup was Orion 120mm - beloptic ir/uv cut filter - 2" diagonal - quark
To the touch the entire optical chain was cold, the quark was barely lukewarm - the altaz dec motor shaft is slipping so I was doing most of the tracking by hand.
The sun sets, I pull the scope back in and remove the quark for the night and look what I see!

Maybe that happened before I installed the beloptik and was using another ir/uv cut filter...

Looks like the IR filter wasn't very effective. It's just figuring out which one it is, since you used two different ones. Did it totally ruin the diagonal?

Just remember that the IR/UV cut Beloptik filter blocks UV et IR.
Still, there is a lot of energy passing in the 400-700 nm band, and ... black plastic aborbs light.


In any case, it might be that the culprit is the other IR-block filter.

How did the light even reach the black plastic? Is the telescope miscollimated you think?

daslolo wrote: ↑Wed Mar 11, 2020 7:25 am How did the light even reach the black plastic? Is the telescope miscollimated you think?

The sun wasn't centred in the field of view...

No, the lesson to be learned is : always open every part of the optical train to verify that they didn't cut corners
I'm saying that because I bought this diagonal due to its all metal construction, external construction.
Fortunately in the land of the free (return) these sort of cost cutting measures are met swiftly, shipped back to sender.

Sag in the focuser: I thought of that and replaced the rack and pinion with a crayford with no sag that I can see
cross threadede nosepieces : what is it?
mirror too small: does it look too small on the photo? Can you show me a diagonal with a large mirror, for reference.
sun not centered in the field of view : interesting that, I assumed that eyepieces mirrors were sized to bounce all the light that the diag baffles/tube let in.