Lunt Solar Systems, a longtime leader in the realm of solar filters, eyepieces, and telescopes, has brought a large innovation to the market. Their Lunt Solar Systems 60mm H-alpha Telescope has a newly designed pressure tuned system that enhances the images produced by their solar telescopes.
If you have any interest in seeing the surface of the sun in unprecedented detail or if you are simply someone who likes to collect neat telescopes and scientific gadgets this could be a telescope for you.
Specs
- Type: Solar Telescope
- 60mm primary aperture
- f/8.3 focal ratio
- 500mm focal length
- 8.8lbs assembled weight
Technical Jargon
- Single Etalon stack
- H-Alpha or CaK Telescope Bandpass in Angstroms: Less than 0.7Å
- Tilt-tuned filter
This is a super safe, super interesting, solar telescope. It produces images that usually are reserved for people at NASA or professional astronomers. But it comes at a price.
No products found.No products found.New Technology = New Views
Normal images produced by a standard solar telescope are very flat and two dimensional. The images are called the solar disc for a reason. Lunt has set out to increase the depth and detail of their images which increases precision for viewing. This makes this telescope useful for the scientifically minded hobbyist or the amateur scientist.
They have achieved this upgrade by including True Doppler Tuning, also known as Pressure Tuning, to their optics.
Pressure Tuning works by minutely affecting the filaments included in the solar filters and is able to Doppler shift the view for different looks. For the uninitiated, think of it as a sort of hand focuser that you would see on normal telescopes except this works on the sun instead of on distant stars.
The results are quite spectacular. Images that appeared flat before can take on a totally new depth giving you the illusion of a more complete 3D image. The image of the sun is so squashed and distorted while using solar telescopes because of the safety and light filtering aspects required, but this brings the image more to life than previously
All of this is professionally and scientifically designed and embedded in the body of the telescope. This makes it nearly impossible to misalign or remove any of the safety and image enhancing features. That means you do not have to worry about accidentally going blind while using this solar telescope. It takes all of the user error out of the equation.
Who’s It For?
The No products found. is one of the most technical solar telescopes available today. That means this telescope is going to be for a very specific, and narrow, group of people who will be able to get their money’s worth out of it.
Depending on what options you choose, this telescope is running from $1200 to $2200 meaning you are going to need to get a lot of extended use out of it to make it worth the sticker price.
Granted, there is a ton of use to be had if you know what you’re doing and you have a deep interest in keeping an eye on the sun. The pros to a solar telescope are you can use them during the day, the sun always looks a little different and the weather is more favorable for solar viewing than deep sky viewing on a regular basis.
If you are an intermediate astronomer or someone who is super passionate about the sun and can see extended scientific or observational use out of this model then it can be worth the money but for the layperson, it is not going to be worth it.
Lunt Solar telescope Overview Video
A Welcome Sight, Accessories
Some solar telescopes come with the very bare minimum needed to simply point the thing at the sun and take a look. Luckily, Lunt Solar Systems 60mm H-alpha Telescope comes with a few accessories to help offset the cost of the scope.
It comes with a clamshell style base that allows this telescope to sit on flat surfaces and remain stable. This is a nice touch over tripod mounts and makes the telescope feel more secure and stable during use. It also features an included 2” Crawford focuser, something usually seen with traditional telescopes but it is nice to see it included here as well. It plays nice with the Pressure Tuning technology to help hone in on some truly fantastic images.
To protect your new baby, they have also included a super high quality case. It is a foam padded, hard sided case that is a godsend for storing this thing. There a lot of telescopes that make me uneasy when someone sneezes near them or if they wobble a bit on their stand and that goes double for this scope. Being able to pack it away in a dedicated, protective case is really nice and allows me to put it away without worrying about its long term safety and performance.
More telescopes need to come with such a great case.
While they aren’t super numerous, the included accessories make sense and add a lot of value to this telescope right out of the box.
Verdict
This is a highly technical and scientific device that will appeal greatly to a small minority of astronomers. It is designed with loving care, that much is apparent, and it comes with some truly neat and high brow scientific upgrades that make it stand out from an already small pack of solar telescopes.
However, unless this is your true passion or you have a long term goal in mind for this telescope, I would suggest passing. It is a lot of money upfront for not a ton of value on the backend. While it can offer some truly unique and breathtaking views of the solar disc, it will lose its appeal to the average astronomer rather quickly.
If you are looking for something a little friendlier on your budget check out the Meade Instruments Coronado Personal Solar Telescope.
This telescope is like a boat if you can find a friend with one to use every once in a while that would be ideal but owning one yourself probably won’t be as fun as it sounds.
