Saxony
Chieftain
If nothing is faster than light how managed the Universe expand to 1 light year after just 1 second?
If nothing is faster than light how managed the Universe expand to 1 light year after just 1 second?
On any given day, what percentage of Earth's surface is obscured by cloud cover as seen from space?
Sunlight has an intensity of about 0.1 W/cm^2, which is almost nothing in optics. Even at 100x magnification, this is not that much. So I wouldn't worry about damaging the eyepiece. But the magnification might be too large for a good projection, so it might work better without it.
Hopefully not to late, but that's a dangerous assumption. Obviously the glass itself won't absorb enough energy to get damaged, but the area surrounding the eyepiece lens elements (or secondary mirror of a reflector) tend to be good absorbers. You get distracted for a moment, the sun moves out of the FOV, and very bad things can happen.
There were times the light wasn't perfectly centered at the exit of the eyepiece. I took some guesswork to get it lined up. But even so, there were only intermittent full-sun conditions.... I'm probably ok.If you notice nothing out of the ordinary while looking through it, it should be fine.<br />
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It shouldn't be problematic, as long as you don't keep them pointed <i>almost</i> exactly at the sun. In that case the energy <i>will</i> end up highly concentrated inside the tubes.<br />
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Energy density near the focus will scale with the square of the objective diameter. That burned out Dobson looks like 16" or thereabouts, for the singed eyepiece a few seconds through a 3" scope were sufficient. <br />
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Next time I would suggest to use a proper filter though (proper as in front of the objective, NOT in front of the eyepiece)
Put another way, outside a universe, would the universe look like a steady size or would the universe look like it was expanding into the foam stuff?