Took a few minutes to test things out to make sure all is ready for the Solar Eclipse on Monday, April 8, 2024. Some time ago I 3D printed a Solar Finder I found on Thingiverse, it worked great! I was able to quickly get the Sun into the scopes field of view.

The Solar Finder is basically just a simple pin-hole camera which replaces a finder scope on the telescope. With the Sun’s disk projected on the middle of the finder the Sun was near perfectly centered in the telescope’s field of view.

I have the scope currently set up with the .8 focal reducer, so I am at F/5.6 with a focal length of around 570 mm. I will probably take the focal reducer out to get the full 700 mm. The solar filter I am using is a Spectrum Telescope Glass Solar Filter #ST500G which I picked up from AgenaAstro last year. It has a very secure fit the SVBONY SV503 102ED.

Took a few test shots of the Sun. There were some clouds but I took a screenshot of this capture when the Sun was in the clear. It is a single 0.000032 capture of the Sun.

There is a pretty large Sunspot in the upper right.

Everything worked as expected. Fingers crossed for a clear sky on Monday.