Tucson, Arizona has cooled some from last week. One week ago today it was 90 degrees, today we are in the low 70s.. oooh that’s chilly…

Along with the cooled temps has come some nice transparent skies. I was testing today and I am very delighted to see several good active areas and as many as 4-5 small developing areas. In addition there are filaments on the surface.. woooHooo!

I hope you get a chance to get outside and view, it’s very nice to see the significant increase in activity over the last few months..

Let me know what you see..

About Lunt Solar Systems LLC…

Lunt Solar Systems is a manufacturing and sales facility located in Tucson, Arizona. Lunt Solar design, fabricate, assemble, and test solar telescopes and solar filters. Whether you are looking for a dedicated solar telescope or a solar filter for attachment to you own astronomy telescope, we can help. Solar telescopes models start at $499 for an LS35T (telescope) or the LS50F (filter) all the way thru the 152T and the 160F. Solar observing is both fun and educational. Don’t miss out on Solar Maximum. Feel free to contact us with question or comments and we’d be happy to help.

A HR LS75F Un-obstructed filter with matchable BF at <0.6Angstroms (single stack).

During the process of R&D I have been working with new coating technologies that are very low stress and very high finesse. As you know, these coatings will be made available in the new LS152T.

One of our recent projects was the manufacture of some un-obstructed larger 75mm Hydrogen-alpha etalons. My intention was to build one and keep it for myself.

Due to batch costs, it was just as costly to make one as it was to make a few :)

As luck would have it, we have been able to produce a couple of these etalons and I have decided to make maybe 5 available. These filters are not part of our normal production and when they are gone, they are gone, we will not take any orders for more. They are a limited edition signature series filter. There is the possibility of matching 2 for a single DS system.

A little about the etalons:

Internal aperture obstructions are used to maintain the parallelism of the high reflector plates typical to an etalon.
Removing the internal obstructions, or feet, requires that the etalon plates be manufactured to the highest specification for flatness possible. Generally better than 100th wave.
In order to prevent stress to the plates (bending) after the coating process, the coating has to be done in a system that can put down a hard, accurate, dielectric at very low heat. This process is often refered to as ion assisted deposition.

In order to decrease the bandwidth, we had to improve the high reflector dielectric properties. However, in general the trade off has been that plates flat enough to take advantage of the improved coating, were too costly to produce. (higher R needed better flatness).

The coatings that we are currently introducing have higher finesse and lower bandpass. While also providing higher contrast (noise to signal and all that). We are making the blacker, black, and the brighter, bright. Sort of like HD for solar viewing..

I will discuss more about the coatings in a future blog..

The specifications are as follows:

Type: Single Etalon Front Mount Filter
Size: 75mm Un-obstructed
Bandpass: <0.6
FSR: 11 Angstroms
Blocking Filter: Price includes B1200
Adapter Plate: Not Included (POR)
Price: US$3,985.00
Availability: Limited from Stock (check your local dealer or call us)
 
These are subject to prior sale and we will NOT take orders after they are gone.

Each filter will be signed and dated.

We have a few other fun things coming up, so you will have to check back here to hear about them first. (How about an unobstructed 150????) ;)~

About Lunt Solar Systems LLC…

Lunt Solar Systems is a manufacturing and sales facility located in Tucson, Arizona. Lunt Solar design, fabricate, assemble, and test solar telescopes and solar filters. Whether you are looking for a dedicated solar telescope or a solar filter for attachment to you own astronomy telescope, we can help. Solar telescopes models start at $499 for an LS35T (telescope) or the LS50F (filter) all the way thru the 152T and the 160F. Solar observing is both fun and educational. Don’t miss out on Solar Maximum. Feel free to contact us with question or comments and we’d be happy to help.

In the spirit of awards and the launch of our new website, Lunt Solar will be giving away a total of US$1,000.00 in gift cards to be used toward the purchase of any Lunt product at any authorized Lunt dealer worldwide..

Entries for this event should be received by December 31st 2009. All entries received after that will be included in January 2010. Award winners will be notified in early January.

How do you enter??

Simply submit; a series of images with related text, an editorial article, a “how to” article, educational article, etc.. Keep the submission relevant and original to anything Solar. It doesn’t have to be observing related.

All submissions will be reviewed and prizes will be awarded to those that are interesting, fun, creative, and entertaining.

Submissions will be placed into our blog or on our website.

Please include return contact information in all submissions.

Submissions and questions should be sent to: sales@luntsolarsystems.com
Please use the sales e-mail until we have finished uploading the completed website and accounts this coming week….

Check back often for more info and updates.

Greg Piepol sent this image of the Sun a few weeks back. I am not sure when it was taken.

Assuming this was just a couple os weeks ago, we can certainly appreciate that the Sun has become a little more active in that timeframe.

Although we still have a long way to go before we see the amazing events that the Sun displays during it’s Solar Maximum, I think we can all feel good about the fact that Solar Minimum is over.

Hopefully we won’t be receiving any more images like the one attached for a while ;)

I am going to stop the further developement of the Adobe Photoshop Solar Features plugin package. The plugin would have allowed for the “enhancement” of Solar Minimum images.

We have received a few recent images and I will be getting those added to the website soon. There’s still alot of work to be done on that site.. Keep the submissions coming, and feel free to comment and ask questions..

About Lunt Solar Systems LLC…

Lunt Solar Systems is a manufacturing and sales facility located in Tucson, Arizona. Lunt Solar design, fabricate, assemble, and test solar telescopes and solar filters. Whether you are looking for a dedicated solar telescope or a solar filter for attachment to you own astronomy telescope, we can help. Solar telescopes models start at $499 for an LS35T (telescope) or the LS50F (filter) all the way thru the 152T and the 160F. Solar observing is both fun and educational. Don’t miss out on Solar Maximum. Feel free to contact us with question or comments and we’d be happy to help.

A quote….

“For 22 years, Popular Science has honored the innovations that surprise and amaze us – those that make a positive impact on our world today and challenge our views of what’s possible in the future.” said Mark Jannot, Editor-in-Chief of Popular Science.
“The Best of What’s New Award is the magazine’s top honor, and the the 100 winners – chosen from among thousands of entrants – represent the highest level of achievement in their fields.”

We are obviously very pleased to have received the BOWN 2009 award in the Recreational Catagory for the New LS60 Pressure Tuned Telescope. See page 58 of the December issue, or check on line when it goes live.

Although it has long been known that altitude changes move the center bandpass of an air spaced filter, it wasn’t until June of this year that the reality of a system that incorporates this technology was brought out into the mainstream. A simple system that simply increases and decreases the air pressure inside a sealed cavity.
This change in air pressure results in a change in refractive index which alters the interference of the light as it enters the cavity. Simplicity! This system basically does the same job as heat would do to a solid design, but instantly, without power, at the turn of a wrist.

Look for some exciting new developements from Lunt Solar in the next 6 months. Along with some R&D projects which I will continue to discuss as I can, we are close to completion on the developement of several new products..

Thanks! to Popular Science for recognizing Lunt Solar as a leader in it’s field.

About Lunt Solar Systems LLC…

Lunt Solar Systems is a manufacturing and sales facility located in Tucson, Arizona. Lunt Solar design, fabricate, assemble, and test solar telescopes and solar filters. Whether you are looking for a dedicated solar telescope or a solar filter for attachment to you own astronomy telescope, we can help. Solar telescopes models start at $499 for an LS35T (telescope) or the LS50F (filter) all the way thru the 152T and the 160F. Solar observing is both fun and educational. Don’t miss out on Solar Maximum. Feel free to contact us with question or comments and we’d be happy to help.