Lunt CaK B1200 - New addition to the Imaging Family

As the first part of the general upgrade to my solar imaging equipment I took delivery today of the Lunt CaK B1200 solar diagonal. The Euro price for this unit is currently £977 without shipping while the US price is £603 with shipping - guess where I went shopping! I ordered direct from Lunt in Tucson, Arizona and the unit was in the UK three days later!! The diagonal will be used on my Equinox ED80 and the Vixen 115s (stopped down to 100mm) refractors. Typically, just as the diagonal arrived, the sky clouded over almost immediately so no chance to test it today. There was very little to test it on anyway with just a tiny area of plage in the NW and no proms at all.

The next part of the upgrade will be a Solarscope SF-70 70mm Ha filter unit or the new Lunt 100mm Ha telescope. Not too sure which to go for yet. The Solarscope optical quality is renowned and well tested by the likes of Pete Lawrence, it is clearly a pedigree solar unit. The Lunts have got off to a shaky start with the LS60T and LS50 filters which do not appear to show much more than you can see in a PST and the tuners are certainly far less responsive. They have also failed so far to get rid of the uneven illumination effects unlike the Solarscope filters which have totally even illumination and full-size etalons. Unless the Lunt 100's get rave reviews and I see some stunning images I will be getting a Solarscope SF-70 in September or October.