To me it seems the PST came out after the last solar maximum. Their has not really been enough solar activity in H-Alpha light to really compare the performance of PST's vs Day Star. The PST is a good scope and price does it make more accessible to amateurs.The difference between .4 A and .5 A was really profound in brightness and contrast. Smaller aperture can also be less affected by "bad air", bigger scopes also frequently "shake" noticeably in a breeze. All in all I do prefer smaller apertures for solar viewing. One of the best views I ever had in H-alpha was 3-4 hours before sunset, but my observatory is surrounded by big grassy lawns. Where we have our sun parties has a lot of asphalt nearby.
I am looking forward to increased activity on the sun, it has been pretty dull for quite a few years now. The seeing during the day is never diffraction-limited; it's usually a
boiling mess. This is the reason seasoned solar observers like to work before the ground heats up, typically before about 10 AM during the warm months of the year. Also why many solar observatories are surrounded by water or at very high altitude. Increased aperture for the amateur rarely, if ever, yields noticeable resolution gains when the air is the determining factor. 50mm of aperture is almost always plenty for the sun.
The PST is a great little scope, showing many H-a details. But notice that for just a bit tighter filter bandbass, you have to spend considerably more money.
Remember that most set-ups like this need to be "tuned"; the PST has an adjustment for this and sometimes a bit of tweaking will improve the contrast of details immensely.
I'll be out at SPOC tonght for a refresher, if I can get out there before sunset, I'll bring my PST for a peek at the sun.
On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 9:44 AM, <erikhansen@thebluezone.net> wrote:
One day I was at Vaughn's, who owns a .4 A filter and has an 80mm F30. I brought the clubs .5 A filter and the 50mm F30. We switched the filters between scopes, the .4 on the 50mm clearly out preformed the .5 on the 80mm. It also seemed to me the performance of the .4 was the same on the 50mm vs the 80mm. Vaughn also agreed.
It is hard to imagine that 1x more mag would make any difference is resolution, in white light. Another 10x seems like it would.
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