Observing sunspots with a telescope
My inspiration for this blog post came when I went to my local planetarium and one of the staff showed me the planetarium telescope and projected the sun on to a blank piece of paper and he showed me the sun spots. So I thought I could do the same thing with my telescope. But what are sunspots anyway? They are temporary, dark areas on the Sun's visible surface that are cooler than its surroundings due to intense magnetic fields inhibiting the flow of heat from the Sun's interior. But let me tell you, observing them has its challenges: WARNING: NEVER LOOK AT THE SUN WITH YOUR TELESCOPE!!! The first challenge, since you can not look at the sun directly is, correctly orienting it to point at the sun. The solution I have thought of to solve this problem is when your telescope is pointing at the sun is that you should only see the circumference of the front part of the telescope on the wall like in this picture. . My second tip, since you can not look at the sun directly i...