Rube Goldberg Award?

[KenMiller]

This has got to win some kind of Rube Goldberg award.

I just got interested in astronomy a couple months ago. I immediately discovered it was going to take some time to sort out the equipment I should get. But being the impatient type, I couldn't wait until I figured it all out so after a couple days of research I got an Orion XT10 Dobsonian figuring that for the price I couldn't go wrong and there was a good chance I'd get some mileage out of it no matter what else I ultimately got.

That was still the only scope I had when I heard about the recent Mercury transit, so I got an Orion Star Shoot Solar System camera to attempt to record it.

I tried to procure a solar filter but couldn't find anyone with one in stock for the XT10. So, I ordered some Baader solar film and made my own.

I took four planter pot bottoms and used two as covers and two to hold the solar film.

I made a "sandwich" of two pieces of thin plastic with a thin piece of aluminum in order to make it opaque. Then I cut a 2.5" hole through the sandwich and glued the solar film in place with silicone.

The sandwich didn't quite fill the gap between the two planter bottoms in which it was placed so I glued a rope "gasket" in to hold it in place.

I captured some AVI using the StarShoot but the best images I got were using afocal projection to a Canon SD500. Here's one:

http://www.astrobeginner.com/images/img_0148.jpg

[mikestrieber]

That's some quality work there Ken. It looks very much like mine for the C9.25 that I bought already in-cell. Nice image also.
Mike

[njnightsky]

Great work on the filter Ken.

[gpiepol]

Very impressive, Ken! Now, that is efficiency.

Greg Piepol
http://www.sungazer.net