Last month imager Brain Johnson tested out his brand new B3400 blocking filter on his LS100THa and boy did he use that blocker to its full potential!  The B3400 is currently the largest blocking filter in the Lunt family, this massive blocker is designed inside a 2″ straight through barrel allowing the largest of CCD cameras to be used!  For the shot below Brian used the famous SBIG STL-11000 CCD camera that sports an awesome full frame CCD sensor.  The field of view (FOV) is huge, its large chip allows Brian to image the entire solar disk in one shot!

Brian’s image shows an extremely detailed solar disk with two large active regions, a sun spot, and countless filaments!

Thanks for sending in your image Brian!

Image Specs:

LS100T-Ha B3400

SBIG STL-11000 class 0 chip

0.011 exposure

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 only slightly more expensive 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.

We received this little piece of feed back the other day from a brand new Lunt owner!  Check out what he had to say.

Hi Rikki,

I have been playing with my new Lunt scope and wanted to tell
you how happy I am with this fantastic instrument!

With my new Tele Vue Binovue's and 24 panoptics, the images
are breathtaking! Almost 3D and incredible!

I can't wait to get the double stack filter to see what that
does, but this is amazing!

Thanks to everyone at Lunt for making such a fine machine!

Sincerely, Tom
 

Thanks Tom for the feed back!  We really do enjoy hearing that you are enjoying your Lunt equipment, it is awesome to see what amazing images and sketches are being produced through our filters and scopes.  Please send us in your pictures so we can post them here on the blog!

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 only slightly more expensive 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.

Sunspot 1092 has been the main target for most solar observers over the last several days.  While this large sunspot hasn’t produced much activity is has still been quite a view!

July 31, 2010 Eduard Garcia-Ribera of Spain captured some incredible images of 1092.

To capture these images Eduard used his LS100T for H-Alpha, B600 Ca-K Module, and Lunt Solar Wedge on his ED100 refractor.

Keep an eye on the sun, some more active regions as well as sunspot 1093 are slowly coming into view!

We enjoy seeing the images you are taking, please send them in and they could end up on a blog post!

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 only slightly more expensive 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.

The sun has been in a deep slumber for the past several years, showing very little signs of activity.  Lately this sleeping giant has begun its journey towards what could be a very impressive solar max.  Over the past view days I have seen countless images of several massive filaments and the activity around sunspot 1092.

Below is an image from solar imager Rick Trommer.  Rick captured this impressive image with his LS60THaDS50.  The two massive filaments can be seen as two snake like bodies on the right while in the bottom left sunspot 1092 is quietly gliding across the solar disk.

Be sure to keep an eye on sun as things are just starting to get interesting again!  Please keep sending in your images!

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 only slightly more expensive 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.

H-Alpha is red, Ca-K is blue, and for Jim Ferreira its all a view in black and white.  Located in Livermore, California, Jim has been producing high resolution H-Alpha images of the heavens for quite sometime.  From deep sky objects to our nearest star, his images bring back the old school feel of simplistic black and white while providing views with remarkable detail!

Photo by Jim Ferreira

While many of his images are moments frozen in time, not all are still!  Lately Jim has been dabbling with the art of time laps photography with the aid of his DMK21 video camera.  The ability to show massive prominences dancing across the sun is truly something to behold!  But how does he capture such images?  Currently Jim uses an LS50F attached to him SV102ED refractor, he someday hopes to add an LS75F or LS100F to use for higher magnification images and video while using the LS50F for full disk images.

Jim’s SV102ED with the LS50F and piggy backed white light scope.

Unlike other imagers Jim chooses to image solely in black and white, but why?  “I do very little viewing with an eyepiece”, he says.   Most if not all of his viewing time takes place at the monitor of his computer.  He keeps his images black and white to match what would be seen in the eyepiece.  “It’s also kind’a an old school thing”, says Jim.   His inspiration for black and white images dates back to his childhood while watching time laps images of solar flares in science class.

Jim continues to produce some amazing images, much of them can be seen on the popular astronomy forum website Cloudy Nights.  He also posts all his work including his dramatic night time images on his personal website: Astrophotography by Jim Ferreira.  Check it out and keep an eye out as he produces more of his signature black and white images!

Photo by Jim Ferreira

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 only slightly more expensive 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.