Solar Filter

I have a solar filter

 It took a couple of orders to get the right one. I have the Nexstar 130SLT from Celestron. I saw that amazon had just a couple of filters left while Celestron had none. This is the Celestron Filter just bought thru Amazon. Right after ordering it it went out of stock. It arrives like a week later. I look at it and I am like this packaging appears too small. It should cover the entire opening. Looking at the box it has the right label? But opening it up and this is what I have.

This is incorrect. It should look like the normal cover for the tube which is this. Sent it back to Amazon as I can't use it.

I am bummed as it is now out of stock. It is caused by the fact that there is a total eclipse coming up. 

 I am looking at the list of filters and I see one for AstroMaster 130EQ. Which is basically the same telescope as mine. It has a different tripod and is a slightly longer tube but what is important is the 130 which is the mirror size which directly relates to the tube size. It looks exactly the same size since the tube is the exactly the same size width wise. The filter is even cheaper then the solar filter specifically for my telescope. That is strange since it appears the same.

 I order it up as they only have a few left of that one. It shows up and yes it is the same and fits the nice and snug. It arrived during the week. To try it out I had to wait till today.

 Once the sun was up high enough this morning and the sky was clear I go out and lets play, Of course I need to figure out how to align the goto mount to the sun. Normally you have to align it to three stars but it is daytime nothing up there but the sun that is visible. I find out the Sun option is hidden since they don't want you to just try and align to the Sun without a Solar filter. So I unhide the Sun option and now I have the option to align to the Sun.

 But you can't look at the Sun. No finder scope is on the tube as you can't look at it directly. If you don't have the finder scope no one will be tempted to look thru it. The way to align is much like a sun dial. You align the Suns shadow till it is absolutely the smallest it can be. Once you get it like that you then slow align it by looking in the eye piece. Now the goto mount will track the Sun.

I look and see Sun Spots! Neat.

 I have the Celestron NexYZ – 3–Axis Universal Smartphone Adapter. It is not perfect but it makes using your cell phone to take photos easier. It is nearly impossible to hold your phone at the eye piece. This enables you to adjust x, y, and z over the eye piece to get the phone in the right position. As simple as this sounds it does take some adjustment to get the camera lens over the eye piece to see what is there.

So the next two pictures are about 30 minutes apart.

I also took a 10 minute video and sped it up to only be 35 seconds long.

 

 I need to keep at this as often as possible so I know all the ins and outs of both doing Solar viewing and getting the most out of the cell phone adapter as I can't afford a DSLR at this point. Time is ticking for the Solar Eclipse. Only one shot to get anything of that so no room for errors. I need to be able to get some shots right!