Solar telescopes- Part1

Over the last few months I've been lucky enough to collect together some interesting solar observing equipment. There's always been some passing interest in the Sun, probably due to the spectroscopic obsevations.
Oldfield ( Hong Kong), http://osastrolog.blogspot.com/2008_06_01_archive.html
impressed me with his steadfast observations under extreme hardship using PST and later a Solarmax SM40 set-up.
After much trial and tribulation with "rusty" objectives, I managed to aquire an Ha PST. The initial views were good and I saw Prominences for the first time. The surface detail was difficult and it took a bit of practise to see the granulations.
Trying to take photographs with the PST turned out easier than I thought, once a Barlow had been added! I quickly found the x5 Powermate gave "Newton Rings" - interference bands across the image, whereas the Klee x2.8 seemed to work very well. The Meade LPI and std webcam worked well.
Looking for more contrast and resolution I chased up and found a SM40/ T-max/BF5 filter combination which could be double stacked on the PST. This dramatically improved the detail and resolution. Faculae, granulation and Proms were very much easier to see although the image, with the reduced bandwidth ( around 0.5A) was much fainter.
Mounting the SM40/BF5 combo on the ED80 gave very good, clean and crisp views, generally ended up with the TV10.5Plossl. I've got to say, more impressive than the PST.
The field was limited by the BF5 filter aperture ( designed for a focal length less than 500mm, the ED80 being 750mm) and I managed to find a second hand original BF10 diagonal/ blocking filter.
When it arrived I was surprised to find it looked nothing like the Gold Coronado BF5 I had.
It had a black CNC machined body and also had a tilting screw to provide fine adjustment of the filter position thereby "tuneing" the centre pass position ( when solar flares and/or Proms are moving upwards and outwards from the Sun's surface their speed gives rise to a Doppler shift of the Ha wavelength; the faster they move the more the Ha is shifted towards the blue end of the spectrum). The combo of the SM40 and BF10 proved ideal. Good full disk views, easier full frame images and a clean bright image.