Reviews

I bought the Solarmax 60 in August of 2007. The model I chose was the 0.5 angstrom model with one external etalon and one internal. It comes with a Cemax 25mm eyepiece, clamshell mounting, solar ranger and hard carry case. It was to upgrade from the double stacked PST that I owned prior. The cost of the unit was pricey to say the least. As such the Solar Ha viewing and imaging part of the hobby is certainly not for the budget conscious. However you can see why the price is so high when it comes to the use of your eyes. It is nice to know that people are taking all the care possible to protect your eyes and present you with the best possible view of the sun.

Solarmax 60
I bought the Solarmax 60 in August of 2007. The model I chose was the 0.5 angstrom model with one external etalon and one internal. It comes with a Cemax 25mm eyepiece, clamshell mounting, solar ranger and hard carry case. It was to upgrade from the double stacked PST that I owned prior. The cost of the unit was pricey to say the least. As such the Solar Ha viewing and imaging part of the hobby is certainly not for the budget conscious. However you can see why the price is so high when it comes to the use of your eyes. It is nice to know that people are taking all the care possible to protect your eyes and present you with the best possible view of the sun.
Build Quality When lifting this unit you can feel the build quality by its weight and feel. The scope is superbly made from the anodising of the aluminium to the actual optics. One minor thing though is the plastic locking screw that holds in the eyepieces. This looks and is inconsistent to the rest of the build quality. It effectively means that you cannot hold a Digital SLR on the scope. The plastic just cannot hold that sort of weight. All up though this scope has the best qualities about it.
Use This scope is a huge step up from the PST model. The extra diameter affords the scope with so much more resolution, which translates into more detail. On the solar surface you can often see orange peeling and the granulation of the Ha surface even with a 25mm eyepiece. All active regions no matteer how small they are just stand out from the surface details. Plage is similarly very bright and filaments show great contrast and sharp definition. Sunspots are like inky spots. And; the prominences show loads more detail and yet still quite bright. Using the etalon can increase detail for one type of detail and reduce those for others depending on which way the blue shifting goes. Finding the careful balance of what shows the right amount of detail can be tricky, but ultimately rewarding. For imaging this unit has it's pro's and con's. The detail that can be obtained when imaging at around 2000mm is superb. Magnetic field lines on active regions are well contrasted against the solar surface. The inner and outer regions of sunspots have clear definition and prominences are well defined with a bandwidth change. The aperture affords a much sharper looking image on these particular points of interest. However, one thing that does detract when imaging is the newtons rings that form on the image. While not overly bad, they do require some software adjustment to remove them. From my understanding they are the primary product of the position and diameter of the internal etalon. It can be alieviated by the removal of the filter on the imaging camera, but this may not be practical for most people. Final Comments This is a fine scope for both observing and imaging. Despite the newtons rings issue this scope is great, I have been more than happy with it and I can thoroughly recommend it.

		EARTH & COSMOS