Built the Solarscope

Got the chance to assemble the Solarscope this afternoon. Although I didn't time myself I'd say it took less than 20 minutes to put together. It was pretty easy to do. There are two points where you do need to pay attention as getting it wrong appeared to be a you-can't-fix-it situation. The first is when you place the mirror into its holder (you need to make sure you put it in the right way round) and the second is when you fit the outer holder for the lens on the end of the telescope (it's got some sort of ratchet thing on it that means you can't easily unscrew it again).


It was cloudy all morning and still was as I assembled the 'scope. However, not long after I'd finished, the skies cleared. I took it outside, lined it up on the Sun (very easy to do) and there it was. Focusing took a little time to sort out first off as I had to adjust how the telescope itself sat (the orange thing you can see in the pictures) but once I'd found the right spot final focusing (by turning the screw on the mirror holder) was very simple.

Four groups of sunspots were easily visible. What I need to do now is figure out a useful method of recording what I see. My only complaint about using the 'scope at the moment is that the part of the inside of the housing that you project on to — which is white — has a number of spots on it. When you're first looking it's sort of hard to tell what's really a sunspot and what's a mark on the card. Moving the image clears up that confusion but it's a shame that it's an issue.