First Attempt at Solar Imaging

Well, I couldnt resist.  It is only clear here in the late afternoon while the sun is still up, so that means there is only one thing to image.  The Sun.  Now keep in mind, that in no time have I actually LOOKED thru an eyepiece while I was doing this - in fact, I aimed the diagonal downward so that no one else could either.

The method of photographing this image was by projecting the image onto a sheet of paper.  I then photographed the paper with the projection on it.  I used a 9 mm eyepiece, and the paper was about one foot away.  I shot the image with a 14 MP digital camera.  The image came out blue with very little contrast.  The contrast and color was enhanced in Paint Shop Pro.  Here it is, I'm not certain which 2 sunspots are visible in this photo, I am just happy to have been able to capture them!

I also converted a 2nd image to grayscale, but it didnt come out near as well as this image.

So here you have it, my first solar images.  I'm still amazed at what one can do with a department store 70mm telescope and a little ingenuity.