Spectrohelioscope for Sale......

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Merlin66
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Spectrohelioscope for Sale......

Post by Merlin66 »

I was talking to Barry Watts at Beacon Hill Telescopes and he mentioned he had an old Spectrohelioscope in storage.... :ohmy:
After some discussions he has agreed to sell. B)
If I were still based in the UK I'd jump at the offer, but I'm days away from flying back to Oz.
Barry doesn't use email, and can be contacted via snail mail at the Beacon Hill Telescopes address:
http://beaconhilltelescopes.org.uk/

He has provided the following information:
To quote:
"""
Full sized Hale type Spectrohelioscope
1. Purpose built Coelostat, motorised with 8" flats.
2. 8" OG (Achromat) 18' focal length in cell or motorised sliding platform (for precise focussing)
3. Electronic rocker type vibrating slit mechanism, with variable slits and line shifter device.
4. Pair of 4" parabolic collimating mirrors in metal housings - fully adjustable.
5. Independant viewing eyepiece (Ex Horace Dall)
6. Original (NOT replica!) 3" square diffraction grating (Ex-Brian Manning), 600 l/mm blazed for Ha, but will also cover Hb and H&K lines (Replicas, B&L, -not as good- sold for 700gbp in 1975)""""

He has photos etc of the original set-up. Total weight of the components about 50Kg+
Needs a solid construction for support.
Spectrum produced is 3" high and 1-2mtr long.

Only serious buyers please - mention my name - Ken Harrison

(I'd say you're looking at a couple of thousand pounds worth of gear!!)


"Astronomical Spectroscopy - The Final Frontier" - to boldly go where few amateurs have gone before
https://groups.io/g/astronomicalspectroscopy  
http://astronomicalspectroscopy.com
"Astronomical Spectroscopy for Amateurs" and
"Imaging Sunlight - using a digital spectroheliograph" - Springer
cwfmd
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Re: Spectrohelioscope for Sale......

Post by cwfmd »

Anyone know the status or disposition of this Hale SHS project?

I'm constructing my initial breadboard prototype of a homebuilt spectrohelioscope(SHS). I saw a presentation at Stellefane in Vermont last summer and have been tinkering with the concept ever since. A big boon was the kind educational contribution of a fine 1200 line/mm diffraction grating by Horiba Scientific of Edison, NJ. {It arrived last October just before my Antarctic expedition departure, so just catching up on it now!)
So yesterday, I combined some surplus optical parts, found in a CalTech surplus store, circa 1991, that have been stored in my hangar since, waiting for this optical project! I was reminded how hard it is to do a multidisciplinary project like this without a team. I found that nice pine boards and aluminum metal stock still make the best prototype materials ( from shopping at Home Depot and on line). An old band saw and drill press in the attic still work after 30ish years, intermittently, in storage from USN.. I discovered a silicon glue variant that's good for securing flat mirrors to their base. This was a step I never had reached in the 1967ish Newtonian grinding of Pyrex mirror- a kit from the Chicago Adler planetarium when you could still fly into downtown at Miegs field.
I need the SHS to track the sun and have been imagining a 2017 version of a heliostat. Coupled with some parallel extensive reading on GA(Geometric Algebra), the (solar tracking coordinate transformations) equations are pretty straightforward in Cl(3). I found a company called Surplus Shed with just exactly what I need, until you go to the webpage and find it's out of stock. But that led to some motors(3phase brushless DC spindle) which I need to spin up the Anderson Prism at ~300RPM. These stepper motors could also drive the two axis RA and Declination, or with a little more programming and feedback sensors, I could skip the polar alignment altogether and with a little Clifford Algebra demo, make a nice controller that would only need to see the sun to track it. This was not that easy yesterday when the sun kept creeping behind the clouds in the course of the initial test flight. Since the tracker is still way in the future TBD, I was moving the 2x4 keel of the SHS propped on the rail of my balcony, for Azimuth, and various combinations of stacked books for Alt.

Initial test does not produce a focused image of the slits' processing through the entry slit, 1000mm convex lens(still looking for a pos meniscus), and back out through the exit slit and 50mm eyepiece. I have yet to complete the Anderson prism mounting and motor drive, but I did find an old 1967 vintage one online!
Bill Miller
Houston,TX
PS: also interested in mounting telescopes to high altitude experimental aircraft: Lancair IV-P, using active image processing to subdue vibration? Anybody?


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Re: Spectrohelioscope for Sale......

Post by Merlin66 »

I'm not sure what happened the the SHS Barry had....it may well still be sitting there in his garage!
I'd recommend "Imaging Sunlight - using a digital SHG" as a good starting point.
http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319248721
Fred Veio's "The Spectrohelioscope" booklet is reproduced with his approval in the Astronomical Spectroscopy forum files area.
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ast ... copy/files

I'd be interested in your source of Anderson prisms......


"Astronomical Spectroscopy - The Final Frontier" - to boldly go where few amateurs have gone before
https://groups.io/g/astronomicalspectroscopy  
http://astronomicalspectroscopy.com
"Astronomical Spectroscopy for Amateurs" and
"Imaging Sunlight - using a digital spectroheliograph" - Springer
cwfmd
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Re: Spectrohelioscope for Sale......

Post by cwfmd »

It was a one time find on another web sight - the yahoo list for SHS [spectrohelioscopes] Digest Number 1163. It may have been part of an estate sale and had been stored in a wooden box. The newspaper it was wrapped in was from Michigan in the 1960s. The seller was asked for details but we are still looking. Its mounted on both ends of the spin axis through bearings with a band drive pulley:

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Re: Spectrohelioscope for Sale......

Post by highfnum »

SHS Hale at Stellafane was just completed this past weekend
should be open for publc next stellafane

o so I have read


cwfmd
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Re: Spectrohelioscope for Sale......

Post by cwfmd »

I had a nice visit with Barry Watts by telephone. He's working on reinstalling the Hale SHS, following a move and storage for a time. He has encountered some minor imagery problems setting it up, unlike the first time. Of course, we agreed, there's not much to look at right now with solar activity at the low part of cycle. He said he was using the coelostat for other projects.


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