Can You Look at the Sun Without a Telescope?

Warning - never ever look at the Sun directly with your telescope. There are ways to see the Sun with your telescope, but you do not want to look directly at the Sun as it will end in most possible catastrophe.

Such a stark warning is necessary. As an example of the power of the Sun, consider that the Sun could easily contain 1 million Earths! This Sun is not a bonfire it is a galactic power station that sustains life on our planet and provides heat and light to all the planets in our solar system and beyond.

Once when using my telescope, I left it outside and put the cap on the eyepiece, but forgot to put the closure on the front to stop the light from entering. Within a few seconds I could smell burning. I took the eyepiece cap off to find the plastic had melted somewhat!

The Sun is very powerful and one not to be played with. However, with all these warning there are ways to look at the Sun in a safe manor, and whatever your budget, you can find a great way to see what the Sun has to offer us budding astronomers.

Looking at the Sun can be done with the following methods:
* Projection
* Special Lens

::: Projection - Safest Way To Look At The Sun With A Telescope :::
Possibly one of the best ways to look at the Sun is to use a principle of the Moon. The Sun is powerful and to counteract the mortal blow on life that would be had if the Sun was to shine constantly, we have a Moon which gives us a small portion of the Suns light in the wee hours of the night.

The aim of this principle is that we deflect the light of the Sun somewhere else and view that projection. Some telescopes come with a Sun projector which allows you to project the Sun onto this projection screen and see the details.

Now, you may be thinking, what good are you going to get from looking at the Sun in such a way? But, to the contrary, the Sun has much detail which can be seen with the projection method. For one, the Sun has much activity on it; Sunspots appear on the Sun and other phenomena. With the projection method we can even get a piece of paper and trace the Sunspots. Then over time, you can see what changes are happening on the Sun. What true science findings you can do with a telescope!

::: Special Lens - Safe Way To Look At The Sun With A Telescope :::
Again a couple of warnings, the cheap department store telescopes may have come equipped with a special Sun viewing eyepiece, however, you must never use this, especially if the telescope brand new was less than $150.

Most telescopes also come with fittings of different colors. These lenses are added to add color when viewing Mars, Saturn, the Moon (to make it darker, as a full Moon can sometimes be overpowering!).

Some people also think that you can burn fire and make soot on the lenses to make them Sun lenses, but this is so dangerous I warn you not to do it, as the cost to your eyes could never be recovered.

Special lenses do exist, and alone cost well over $100. These are very special lenses, and are the only ones to be used. My over caution is for great reason, the Sun is a dangerous place and getting your eyes to close to that heat can cause irreversible damage. Best be safe and use the projection method, it still serves to show you great detail, while being safe. Another suggestion is to keep young children supervised at all times when using any method to view the Sun.