January 2000 - How to observe the Sun - John Smith

For Sunlovers January's meeting was a must, as we had John Smith give a very good talk on "How to observe the Sun". I hadn't realised beforehand, but John is / has been chairman of the SPA Solar section on and off for years, and also assists the current BAA Solar Section Director too - so Malcolm had definitely had a good eye for a speaker.

John not only gave examples of how to observe the Sun, and went into the safety aspect - as you would expect, but he also showed with slides some of the more hidden dangers of solar work.. like broken eyepiece filters, torn mylar, and melted telescopes! Melted telescopes ? Yes you did read that right, not many people realise it but a large number of the smaller department store telescopes have plastic optics, hence when they heat up.. they melt, or even catch fire. Quite frightening really.

As John rightly said, projection is the only completely 100% safe way of viewing the Sun, and even then you have to be careful that no kids look up the projection beam, if you're showing the public. That said, it is also commonly the easiest way to observe in great detail - as I can vouch for, and photographing the projected image is very simple and can be done with an ordinary camera. For best results however, John explained that the projection screen should be shaded from the direct Sun, or if possible, partially enclosed in a box of some kind, as this enhances the contrast.

John then went on to show a number of nice images in the visible spectrum, and also showed some of the X ray images taken by both SkyLab and Soho, which we well received.

After his talk the questions flowed, and I saw that even during the tea break he didn't get much of a rest !

If you have any outstanding questions, please do come forward and ask me, Kev. Solar work is something that I've done for years and its the mainstay of my Astronomy. Got the books, made the play, taken the photo's and the CCD images (see alt.binaries.pictures.astro newsgroup ). Further solar observing tips