Altair Solar Wedge 2

Description

Opened but never used.
The Altair Solar Wedge (Herschel Wedge) replaces the normal 2" mirror or prism diagonal at the rear of your refractor telescope. The Solar Wedge transmits a greatly reduced, safe amount of light to the eyepice or camera.
This makes it safe for both visual use with an eyepiece, or astrophotography with a CMOS camera such as the Altair GPCAM or Hypercam.
Solar wedges are well known to give a sharper, higher-contrast image than traditional metallized solar film or front-mounted glass solar filters, by eliminating reflections between the filter and front telescope lens. The result is a sharp, very high contrast view of sun spots and solar surface granulation.
The Altair Solar Wedge has special anti-reflection coatings on the internal polarising filter and prism. A high specification prism gives the ultimate in sharpness and resolution for imaging and observing.
Compared with normal solar film filters, the improvement the Altair Solar Wedge offers is dramatic. Sunspots appear a much darker black against the surface of the sun, with the grey area around the sunspot being very separate and distinct from the darker central area. Many who have never seen fine surface granulation before will see it easily!
Key Features:
Wide brightness adjustment range allows imaging AND visual use - in one unit.
High quality, large prism.
115mm backfocus / optical path length enables use with most refractors.
Anti Reflection (AR) coated prism and polariser.
46mm clear aperture.
Quick, easy centering of the sun with glowing spot on rear diffuser.
Does not become as hot as other models, thanks to rear energy diffuser.
2" "Positive Lock" compression ring for fast accessory changes.
Includes 2"-1.25" adapter.
Sturdy CNC machined casing to hold heavy binoviewers or a DSLR camera, filter wheel etc.
Safe and easy to use: Unlike cheaper solar wedges which overheat or worse, direct excess energy downwards into the ground, the Altair Imaging-Ready Solar Wedge directs energy into a special extra thick Polycrystalline Ceramic diffuzer disc at the back of the Wedge. Air vents allow air circulation by convection. The Polycrystalline disc has the added benefit of acting like a "solar finder". The sun appears as a "ball of light" on the back of the disc - simply move your telescope until the ball of light is in the centre of the disc, and you are aligned with the sun!
One wedge does it all! Both solar photography or visual observation: Often solar wedges don't give enough light for high speed exposures needed to "freeze" air-motion for a sharp image. The Altair Solar Wedge has an AR coated internal polarising filter, which let's you control the brightness of the image. Brightness can be increased or decreased by rotating the top assembly, then locking it in the desired position with a side thumbscrew. Variable brightness is very important both for visual and imaging use, to fine tune the ideal exposure time, or the ideal contrast levels at the eyepiece - especially when adding a colour filter such as a green continuum filter for extra contrast. Unlike other makes, the Altair Solar Wedge enables both visual and imaging applications without having to change internal filters. With the solar wedge in "bright" mode, exposure times as low as 2 milliseconds are routinely possible with high speed CMOS cameras like the Altair Hypercam or GPCAM. This effectively "freezes" the seeing (air movement) resulting in an incredibly sharp image.