Lol. Erik, you'd have to make it pivot so as the sun changed altitude, you wouldn't spill your beverage. Seriously though, solar viewing can be a difficult, sweaty activity. Some of us made similar sun-shields for our filter-equipped parallelogram-mounted binoculars for partial solar eclipses and general white-light viewing. With straight-through binos, this is a necessity since you are facing the bright sun while trying to peer through the eyepieces. I remember Dave Dunn posted about his version. H-a observing is tough because the image is dim, and in the case of the PST, with a small primary aperture as well as a constricted aperture opening at the focal plane, the telescope's aim is critical. The "sweet spot" is dead-center and you can't really let the sun drift across the field of view. It's very narrow and the sun must be kept fairly well-centered all the time. The final handicap is that our own pupils are about as small as they can get when out in bright sunlight, so we have to get our eye positioned exactly right at the solar telescope eyepiece. I'm thinking of some kind of large PVC-framed sunshade covered with an opaque tarp, and a small hole to poke the barrel of the solar telescope through. Keep the entire observer in the shade. Using the electronic eyepiece and a TV monitor is another option, but not nearly as desireable as actually looking through the eyepiece. Either that, or the "Sombrero PST Mount"... *;o)* Solar observing is at least less sweaty in winter time. I had a few minutes with the PST this morning before the clouds drifted-in, and the sun is still one quiet star, folks. On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 9:10 AM, <erikhansen@thebluezone.net> wrote:
Where's the cup holder?