Solar Observing at the Solstice Picnic

By Chris Predom

I had my Meade 90-mm f/11 refractor with an Orion glass solar filter. Al Wasburn had his solar binoculars set up on a T&T mount (made by Tom Lloyd and Tony Melilio, past members and presidents of the club). Our current president Greg Barker had his 40-mm Coronado and his 90-mm Lunt that once belonged to Alan Sacahrow, both on a Celestron CG4 mount. We had different views of the Sun with each instrument.  We were viewing through thin clouds, with large puffier ones totally blocking the Sun at times. I snapped some photos with my iPhone through Greg’s 90-mm Lunt and my scope. The red image of the Sun is in H-alpha. The detail seen by eye was not recorded in the image as the glare of thin clouds was picked up by the iPhone. But the image in the 90-mm Lunt was highly detailed.