Questions about and deciding on a Solar Set Up

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Which combination would you recommend (price to performance)?
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Joel Lee avatar
Joel Lee avatar

Hi Everyone!

After NEAIC/NEAF and the excellent talks/presentations there, I caught the itch to acquire solar gear. After doing a ton of reading online, I wanted to directly ask people with more experience about solar equipment. My main question is which of the following combinations for solar would yield the best results overall in this 100mm class? Is there a recommended price to performance combination (DS internal vs DS Front + internal or DS internal vs Single Stack Front)? Am I going to notice a difference between a single stack front etalon vs a double stack internal etalon vs a front + internal double stack?

  • LS100MT Premium Bundle ($5400) (Double stack internal) (Assuming miscellaneous costs for stuff like the Ha filters but no other major purchases to rely on)

  • LS100MT Enhanced Bundle + LS100FHa ($4300 + $4000) (1 Front, 1 Internal)

  • LS100FHa + Blocking Diagonal ($4000 + $700) (Single stack new Etalons are <0.45A)

Some context:

  • I have a SVX102T I’m ordering soonTM. I know for a fact that this is going to be an excellent night time scope and that I can likely put the LS100FHa on as a single stack. The tradeoffs are I don’t get an extra scope and lose out on double stacking until I get another internal etalon scope but I save a ton of money.

  • I’d like to not drop a ton of money for a one trick pony (partially ruling out the Heliostar 100 but it had some incredible views). Hence a LS100MT night and day set up is favorable since I can put the scope to work at night as well (working with the SVX or my Esprit).

  • I’m not looking for a scope smaller or larger than 100mm.

  • I’d like to not exceed the price of the front + internal combo. As a result, double front etalons are probably not financially feasible for this gear cycle.

  • I am aware that Lunt has new etalons and that a lot of the discussion about it will be kind of speculative since there aren’t that many or if any out in the wild at all.

I was lucky enough to be at NEAF and got to look through the variety of scopes available there. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a direct comparison between a LS100MT and a Heliostar 100. From what I saw, the Heliostar 100 was extremely impressive to me visually. However, with the new Lunt Etalons coming out, I was wondering if they might matchup/do better now.

Thanks for reading, I look forward to any responses! Clear skies!

- Joel

P.S. If anyone knows about how the LS100MT performs at night on APS-C I would love to hear about that! Most of the nighttime information I read about is that it’s a FPL 53 triplet but raw frames tell the real story.

P.P.S. Not relevant to purchasing but is triple stacking etalons a thing?

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SonnyE avatar
SonnyE avatar

Never done it, Joel, except through filters. A friend in New Mexico got into Solar Imaging with Lunt scopes. And he got some remarkable results. My stuff through different types of filtering medium was ok, but not as captivating for me as my DSO imaging has been.

I fell away from Solar probably over a decade ago. But if you want to pursue it, I’d recommend a true dedicated telescope for it. Not funky filters like I tried. I always wondered what a pinhole in a filter film could do to one of my cameras. So I backed away from it.

But good luck to you. It is the nearest Star to take pictures of. And generally very available to us. (Depending on your location and weather, of course.)

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Tony Gondola avatar
Tony Gondola avatar

IT’s funny, but for the last several weeks I couldn’t buy a usable night but strangely enough, daytime has been clear and with good seeing. I could see getting into solar just to fill in the gaps between good nights.

Paul Larkin avatar
Paul Larkin avatar

Hi, Joel.

I have a Lunt 50 single etalon (my affordable entry into solar viewing and imaging), which is quite good, but clearly not anything close to what can be achieved with the 100 double etalon, for which there are several brilliant images on Astrobin.

I recently took delivery of a SHG700 spectroheliograph. This is a completely different instrument of course but also worth a look - imaging only.

I suspect you’ll want the 100 but the SHG700 is something else to add to the mix.

Cheers.

Paul

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Joel Lee avatar
Joel Lee avatar

Paul Larkin · Apr 29, 2026 at 11:20 PM

Hi, Joel.

I have a Lunt 50 single etalon (my affordable entry into solar viewing and imaging), which is quite good, but clearly not anything close to what can be achieved with the 100 double etalon, for which there are several brilliant images on Astrobin.

I recently took delivery of a SHG700 spectroheliograph. This is a completely different instrument of course but also worth a look - imaging only.

I suspect you’ll want the 100 but the SHG700 is something else to add to the mix.

Cheers.

Paul

Hi Paul! Glad to hear you like your Lunt 50! Also thanks for bringing up the SHG! I was also considering the SHG but placed it a bit further down the priority list. I really like that you can tailor it to a huge variety of wavelengths and explore other aspects of the sun but I didnt like that the full disc images are stuck dealing with waves and fuzzy stitching. With the 100 I was hoping to go after timelapses of prominences or the sun over a day.

CS,

Joel

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Paul Larkin avatar
Paul Larkin avatar

Hi, Joel.

Indeed, it can’t do the lovely timelapse that the Lunt can do. e.g. I took two SHG images back-to-back a couple of days ago and there was so much shift in one of the prominences that it would not be fast enough for making videos of such things (moved about 13 pixels within 30seconds - I calculated the speed as well and it was about half what the sun will often do). Only a high fps camera on a scope such as the Lunt will achieve that.

And the jagged edges (and therefore the interior) are very much affected by seeing and require patience. I am finding it great to play and learn.

You might like to check out this chap’s (AZASTROGUY) YouTube videos. He is all about solar viewing and imaging, including this one on choosing a solar scope: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeYod1D-HkE

And this one on the Lunt 100MT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R1CYEFpwBQ

All the best with your decision making. Hopefully many more will contribute to your question.

Paul

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Joel Lee avatar
Joel Lee avatar

Paul Larkin · Apr 30, 2026 at 04:36 AM

Hi, Joel.

Indeed, it can’t do the lovely timelapse that the Lunt can do. e.g. I took two SHG images back-to-back a couple of days ago and there was so much shift in one of the prominences that it would not be fast enough for making videos of such things (moved about 13 pixels within 30seconds - I calculated the speed as well and it was about half what the sun will often do). Only a high fps camera on a scope such as the Lunt will achieve that.

And the jagged edges (and therefore the interior) are very much affected by seeing and require patience. I am finding it great to play and learn.

You might like to check out this chap’s (AZASTROGUY) YouTube videos. He is all about solar viewing and imaging, including this one on choosing a solar scope: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeYod1D-HkE

And this one on the Lunt 100MT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R1CYEFpwBQ

All the best with your decision making. Hopefully many more will contribute to your question.

Paul

Thanks for sharing the insight on the SHG and the two videos! It’s quite intriguing that such massive structures are moving so quickly on the sun. Those two videos were great watches and quite informative!

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Willem Jan Drijfhout avatar
Willem Jan Drijfhout avatar

Hi Joel, you may have already done this, but it is definitely worth checking out the solarchat forum. It is all-solar with very friendly and experienced solar imagers and lots of valuable advice.

Like you, I had a lot of unknowns when I chose my setup. In the end I ended up with a front-mounted 60mm Lunt etalon, which gives fantastic views. If you’re interested in the journey at the time and the lessons learned, feel free to check out this blog.

From what I understand is that for solar a bigger aperture can be a blessing or a curse. A 100mm aperture will give you by far best detail, but the conditions (thermals, humidity, etc) need to be perfect for it. Under sub-optimal conditions a smaller aperture may give you an even better image. Obviously this depends a lot on your location.

Besides the etalon, make sure you also get a big enough blocking filter on the camera-side. These filters are very expensive, so the tendency is to keep them relatively small. In an all-in-one scope the focal length of the telescope and the diameter of the blocking filter all matches and they will tell you the maximum field of view you can get. But if you match your own telescope to a front-mounted etalon, you will have to assess this yourself. You don’t want to invest in an expensive system just to realise that you can’t even make a full-disk image of the sun just because the blocking filter is too small.

Anyway, just a few considerations. Good luck with your purchase and let us know what you decide.

CS, Willem Jan.

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Joel Lee avatar
Joel Lee avatar

Willem Jan Drijfhout · Apr 30, 2026 at 09:26 AM

Hi Joel, you may have already done this, but it is definitely worth checking out the solarchat forum. It is all-solar with very friendly and experienced solar imagers and lots of valuable advice.

Like you, I had a lot of unknowns when I chose my setup. In the end I ended up with a front-mounted 60mm Lunt etalon, which gives fantastic views. If you’re interested in the journey at the time and the lessons learned, feel free to check out this blog.

From what I understand is that for solar a bigger aperture can be a blessing or a curse. A 100mm aperture will give you by far best detail, but the conditions (thermals, humidity, etc) need to be perfect for it. Under sub-optimal conditions a smaller aperture may give you an even better image. Obviously this depends a lot on your location.

Besides the etalon, make sure you also get a big enough blocking filter on the camera-side. These filters are very expensive, so the tendency is to keep them relatively small. In an all-in-one scope the focal length of the telescope and the diameter of the blocking filter all matches and they will tell you the maximum field of view you can get. But if you match your own telescope to a front-mounted etalon, you will have to assess this yourself. You don’t want to invest in an expensive system just to realise that you can’t even make a full-disk image of the sun just because the blocking filter is too small.

Anyway, just a few considerations. Good luck with your purchase and let us know what you decide.

CS, Willem Jan.

Thanks for sharing the two links and tips Willem! The blog you wrote was quite well written and a good read. For solarchat forum, thanks for sharing it, I might put up a post there as well after a bit of gathering info on here. I was previously lurking around there right after NEAF to see what people were saying haha.

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