Today was a great day for solar observing; the sun is now higher in the sky and finally now properly clears the treeline from my local horizon, this now gives me a window of a good couple of hours to observe should the clouds ever part. Fortunately, today they did, if only for a hour or so, but this was more than long enough for me to try out my latest modded solar scope. I've added the 70mm Baader D-ERF (as per my review earlier on this website) and a different collimating lens to my trusty 70mm f6 refractor and threw on a PST etalon. This gives me a 70mm 520mm fl solar scope. The image above was taken 70mm f12 with the DMK31 and shows that this mod is working well. Infact I find it difficult to choose between the colour and black and white versions of this shot...
Despite the sun only being 16deg altitude in the sky, and instability caused by surrounding snow and ice and the warmer maritime air that is now over us, the resultant image has came out pretty good. 70mm seems a good balance of resolution and ability to use on a regular basis based on the often poor local seeing conditions I often have in an urban sky scape. This short focus scope offers great mechanics and portability, making it ideal for travel / outreach. I'm looking forward to using this 'new' scope on a regular basis in 2013 while we're at solar maximum, there will be plenty of activity to see!