Richard posted:

Does anyone know which piece in the scope accounts for most of
it's cost? Is it the etalon? I'm curious as to why the prices for
solar scopes/products haven't really dropped below $500.
Also, despite the fact I've owned hundreds of conventional scopes,
eyepieces, etc, I'm not really up on the workings of the solar
products. Is there a great benefit to increased aperture (the filter
or the scope) when viewing the sun in H-alpha?

Yes, the Fabry-Perot etalon is the most expensive part of the filtering
system, and the larger the etalon the greater the cost. There is some detail
resolution benefit (if you have good daytime seeing) to using a larger
aperture, but in that case, the filtering system is a smaller etalon located
just beyond the focal point of a long f/ration system (usually longer than
f/30). The larger aperture will allow resolving finer scale detail as long as
the seeing is good enough. I do get to see physically smaller surface detail
with my 87.5mm aperture Makstuov + Powermate + Daystar T-Scanner, but the PST
still shows a lot, and with slightly higher contrast. Clear skies to you.
--
David W. Knisely
Prairie Astronomy Club: http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org
Hyde Memorial Observatory: http://www.hydeobservatory.info/

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