Halpha solar observation

Hi everyone,

I have been doing a little bit of Googling on how to make a solar filter for the upcoming long "Summer" days and I thought I would ask a possibly silly question. If you have a normal solar filter (which I assume just diminishes the amount of light coming into the telescope) and you put a H-alpha filter on the eyepiece, would this be the same as buying one of those enormously expensive H-alpha telescopes?

Thanks in advance,
Clear Skies,
John

Hi John

I asked the same question to one of the members of this site who knows his stuff.

Short answer is no.

The white light filter will take away 99% of the light and that has in it what you need for the H alpha viewing

John,

As Dave says, it wouldn't work.
A night time h-alpha filter and a solar h-alpha filter are two different beasts.
In technology levels, it's comparing the Ford Model T to the Ferrari F40.

For details of White Light Solar Filters, see here:
www.irishastronomy.org/index.php?option=...id=100056&Itemid=211

A night-time h-alpha filter is really just a contrast booster filter.
It simply boosts the contrast of night-time h-alpha objects by reducing non-h-alpha light.
However, it still lets in light from a very wide range - it needs to do this so that you can still see faint objects at night
Example: 12nm
www.astronomik.com/en/photographic-filte...12nm-ccd-filter.html

A solar h-alpha filter is a high precision device.
It only lets in light from a very narrow range.
Example: 0.7A = 0.07nm

So, it's in a very different league.
To make a filter which such a narrow bandpass requires very different technology, hence the cost.

Ah I see now. So it's all got to do with the amount of light being passed through the filter and whether or not is is narrow splitting or wide splitting.

Thanks guys