I had been waiting for a day with clear skies and when sun spots were to reappear. Finally, I got a chance to use some of my Christmas “presents”. One was a 14mm Scopetronix Wide Angle eyepiece with built-in 28mm threads for a Nikon camera. Unfortunately my cameras, a SONY DSC-V1 accepts 52mm threads via a 45.5 mm converter tube (obtained from Scopetronix) and a SONY DSC-H5 which accepts 58mm threads via a SONY-supplied 56mm converter tube. To use the Scopetronix threaded 14mm eyepice, I used more of my presents, two step-down rings which I ordered and received prior to Christmas. A 37-28mm ring and a 52-37 ring allowed me to take images of the sun today with my Orion 100mm ED suitably equipped with an Orion sun filter. Unfortunately, I hadn’t used this equipment for about two years. I polar-aligned as best I could. However, I couldn’t get my RA motorized drive to work after plugging into AC via a 6v DC converter with correct plug. When the clouds arrived I solved the problem during the disassembly. It helps if you push in the “phone” connector to the motor drive all the way in and hear it click.

My first image was of the entire sun using a Scopetronix Maxview 40mm as practice. Difficult to focus using an LCD in daylight. I then replaced the 40mm with the 14mm eyepiece and took a host of images with the 5 MP SONY DSC-V1. Then I replaced the V1 with my 7 MP DSC-H5 with 3″ LCD hoping for easier focusing. Alas, it too was still too bright despite blocking as much of the sun via a bath towel wrapped over my head. However, I took many images using a 2 sec timer delay which made timing of the sun’s image into the centre of the display much easier than the 10 sec delay of the V1. When the clouds came it was time to disassemble and watch the Rose Bowl parade. During commercials I excitedly examined each image. The images using the 14mm revealed four major spots and over 40 others in incredible detail. Curious that although the images of the major spots were in different locations of various image frames, the location of the 40 others didn’t change. What a major disappointment when I realized I had focused on something – dust ? or blemishes ? – on the eyepiece or perhaps on the objective lens or on the sun filter. Oh well, I’ll try again tomorrow. In the meantime you can see my feeble efforts of today and judge for yourself.

V1 image details: ISO 200, F3.5, 1/800 sec at 10:15 am EST.

I “accidently” experimented with the light source setting on the H5. My previous photo-shoot using the H5 was indoors using incandescent light source setting. I’ll fix that next time too. H5 image details: ISO 200 F3.5, 1/200 sec at 10:36 am EST