What You’ll See

Mouse over the sun to reveal a preview of what you’ll see through a Lunt Telescope.
Click while viewing to switch between Single and Double stack filters.

The cause and effect of the Sun’s activity right here on Earth!

You will learn to see the fine feather-like details of the faintest prominence, the bright birth of a solar flare, its rapid growth of energy, and its departure from the Sun’s surface into space.

You will see caterpillar/worm-like structures (filaments) snaking across the Sun’s surface, spirals of gas activity spewing and churning from active regions above sunspots, and if you are lucky, the violent eruption of an X-class flare from the surface. This amazing event, which is highly energetic, fast evolving, huge in size, really does provide the full appreciation of just how small we humans really are.

The solar features you are looking at can last hours and even days. As the Earth rotates around the Sun, the features will appear to move across the Sun’s surface. This allows the observer to see the details in various angles and positions, both off the edge of the Sun, and in cooler contrast to the Sun’s bright and hotter surface.

Coronal Mass Ejections (CMT’s) and flares are by far the most awe-inspiring events that can be viewed thru a Solar scope in real time. Often starting as a large Filament or Active Region, they quickly develop in energy, resulting in an explosion of mass from the Sun’s surface. Many pass harmlessly by, while others can hit the Earth head on. This can disrupt our communications, electricity, and provide awesome light shows (aurorae) as the Earth’s upper atmosphere is effected.

The cause and effect of the Sun’s activity can be seen and felt. The next time you hear a prediction that a flare will hit the Earth and your cell phone doesn’t work for a while, you’ll know why!

This is what Lunt Solar is about… putting research-grade Solar Instruments into the hands of the avid hobbyist. What could be more spell-binding than looking into that fiery hot ball of super heated gas at the center of our Solar System?

Single Stack

• A single etalon system (single stack) will provide a less than 0.7 Angstrom bandpass.
• Single stack systems provide a bright image that allows for excellent viewing of the edge details of the Sun (prominences and flares) whilst also providing a view of the more active features on the surface.
• Changes in the tuning of the etalon filter in single stack mode will allow for slightly increased Doppler shifting of the various features when compared to a double stacked system due to the wider bandpass.

Double Stack

• Adding a second etalon to a single stacked system (thus creating a double stack) will narrow the bandpass of the system to less than 0.5 Angstroms.
• While slightly dimming the features at the edge of the disk, double stacking greatly enhances the contrast of features on the surface of the Sun, pulling out all the very fine details of active regions, filaments, and granular structure.
• Double stacking can be done externally or internally by adding a secondary etalon to the front of the system or by installing a second etalon to the internal structure of the system.
• There is a well-known saying that exclaims: “once you double stack, you’ll never go back.”