David and I decided to look at the Sun in Hα. I mounted up the Coronado SolarMax 90 on the front of the Tele Vue 101 and then the Blocking Filter in the mirror diagonal.Initially, we weren't seeing anything. And then I remembered... Duh. There's an inner lens cap on the SolarMax filter. Oops.
There were only a couple of small of small prominences. There was one small wispy flare. Then there was an interesting item, or two rather. Very small twin bumps. Little plasma roof tops.
I tried to spot the "tear" in the middle without success.
We struggled with focus again. We cannot quite reach inner focus with some eyepieces.
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I almost made a serious mistake with my eyeball.
I started to look down the tube with only the SolarMax filter attached, i.e. without the back blocking filter. The light was incredible intense even before I got to the centre of the light path. I recoiled, blinking! Had I just burnt out my retina?! I knew I wouldn't feel any pain. No spots. No darkening. I think my left eye is OK.
Lucky.
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In attempting to isolate the problem with the 'scope when we did not see anything in the Tele Vue, we mounted up the white light masking filter. Nothing in this view. No sunspots of course.
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