Lunt Universal 100mm Solar Telescope Review! 

When I was a kid I had a little 4.5" reflector that came with a solar eyepiece filter. I used it a few times. One day I had it pointed at the sun but was not looking through the eyepiece, when I went back I noticed a brilliant light passing through the eyepiece, I was smart enough at 14 years old not to look in it. I found the filter had cracked down the middle from the heat. Lucky for me I wasn't observing when this happened. NEVER use an eyepiece filter to observe the sun.

you should be an on TV educator with his own show.. your ability to teach is amazing and your knowledge incredible.. thanks for what you do.

Half an hour video from Ed? I tought that my day can't get better!

Finally a review on the lunt, I have been waiting for you to a review on one.

Excellent and very informative review! Thank you Ed.

Excellent advice. Next time I will be more caution when keeping my telescope during the day. Thank you!

Another great video. Thank you Ed, your way of explaining things is spot on.

Great video, as usual, Ed. With the Sun approaching solar max your timing is good!

Thank you for the review Ed! I was eyeing this scope for both my nighttime astrophotography as well as some solar observation and imaging.

I was lucky to find this video. I appreciate your honest explanation. Greetings from México.

Love Lunt's products. I've an LS35. Yes it's small, it's a tilt-tuned scope but I love it. I would love to be a pressure tuned double stack someday, but I'm pretty happy with my set up

To be super safe, I recommend using a solar filter and a cheap smartphone adapter on the other side, so that you see the image thru your smartphone's screen, since the smartphone's camera is "looking" thru the eyepiece. In any case of a failure it might ruin your smartphone's camera lense, but save your eyesight - it definitely was the case for me and the burnt camera lense only happened within 1 second.

Ed: Great review. I'm glad you had enough time with the scope to review it properly. I've been getting better with the tuning and have had some wonderful views as the Sun enters an active period. I'm really pleased with the scope's night views. Some of the views of familiar objects that I go to with Soulshine look quite a bit different thru the 100mm. I'm just about ready to add a few eyepieces to my collection, since most of the ones I have are for the 11" f/10, and I need some between 3mm - 6mm for the Lunt to really show it's stuff. On a side note, I finally got someone to come out and do most of the grunt work on my stereo setup. I'll have to get you to stop by and listen to it when I finish the last part of it. Ken

Great learning video! I picked up the double stacked solarmax III last year. I want to do some pics using my cell phone. My celestron cell phone adapter should be here next week! Once you double stack, you never go back!

I have seen many of your videos and I find them very educational, very entertaining and very useful. In addition, his comments are very serious and very professional. I liked this very much because I plan to buy this telescope and as you say it is not cheap at all. THANKS A LOT.

Hi Ed, I’m a great devotee of your videos and reviews. This one was extra special because I’m just getting into solar observing. Earlier this year I got a Takahashi refractor (FC-100DZ). It came without a case and I wondered about that, just as you wondered about the low quality case for the Lunt instrument you were reviewing. I decided that high quality telescope manufacturers should just focus on the instruments they make and leave the cases to others. But it would certainly be nice to see more third party telescopes cases. Clear Skies

Hi Ed, THANK YOU for the detail on this scope, I am looking at this to purchase now.. I really like the breakdown part by part. This is more explanatory than the website. It is much more hands on. This really helps THANK YOU, Bruce

I received my Lunt MT100 earlier this spring and have just got it dialed in for visual observing and the views are amazing! I use it with Deinkmeir Binotron 27 Binoviewers with Tele Vue Polosels, and wow, so cool and relaxing. Can’t wait to get setup with EAA viewing imaging as well. I had to purchase the High Resolution H-alpha Filter for DS Units to remove the pink ghosting caused by double stacking. Add another $185 LOL. Ed thanks for the wonderful review of “my pride and joy”!!

Hi Ed. I read your telescope and sky watching articles avidly 20 years ago - back when reading was a thing. Followed your advice, learned my way around the sky and bought some decent binoculars. Had a lot of of fun for a few years, then kinda lost interest. Recently interest is renewed, went on you tube, and lo and behold, there's Ed Ting. Hey, I know him! Love your videos.

When you said that the telescope is a bargain, I was amazed that you could do it with a straight face. I agree with the astronomers asked if it was overpriced and they said no. Great review!

I got the 80 and love it. It’s an important note that Lunt offers it as just a 80 doublet. I purchased mine that way and bought the single stack pressure tuner later. That’s invaluable for folks on a budget. I spent a lot of time and investment on making it Astrophotography ready across module swapping. I plan to make a video to show what I came up with. My method employs just disconnecting four cables. Great review. It’s expensive but definitely a lot of fun. I’m quite impressed with its night performance.

I absolutely love the Lunt line of telescopes. Bit out of my price range right now. But the Lunt 50mm is definitely on my bucket list of things to get in the future.

Ed, your reviews of telescopes is very informative and interesting. This particular Lunt Solar telescope is definitely eye candy for sure. One big positive, it's convertible where you can use it for day and night. Any real serious amateur astronomer ought to think about investing in one. Clear skies my friend!

Wow, great to see you review this one. I got this last year and couldn't agree more. It's a phenomenal telescope. After devouring your reviews for YEARS, I knew what makes for a GREAT telescope. After finally being able to afford some of the premium optics you've recommended over the years, I ordered an 18" Teeter Reflector with the mighty Carl Zambuto Mirror. It's been 18 mos, and should arrive sometime in Sept. But then I thought I should get a good quality refractor. Had an Orion Eon 130 ordered, but then decided, nope, these ultra-high-end reflectors and refractors are getting harder to come by. I've been on the AP 155 list for 20 years, LOL and they basically said it won't happen, so Roland recommended TEC, so I ordered their 160 FL Triplet, with a 1 year wait. Interesting side note. I have the privilege of living near two of the world's best apo refractor builders on the planet. Went to Highschool in Rockford Illinois not more than a couple miles from the AP factory. Now Roland recommends TEC over the Taks and they are made about an hour away from where I live in Colorado Springs! While I was waiting for these dream scopes, I thought I should get a solar scope too. Had a 90mm DS Coronado ordered, but while waiting for that backorder I started hearing about Lunts. Cancelled the order and pulled the trigger on the 100MT double stack. Funny I went from thinking about getting a $2 to $3K max solar scope to dropping about $8000 LOL. But while I was waiting for it to come, I realized, damn this thing is going to be an impressive refractor. What I like about the 100mm model is it's the only size that has both a triplet design AND the FPL53 glass. Smaller and it's a doublet with FPL53, larger and it's a triplet but not the FPL53. So kind of the sweet spot. Yes, the solar images are amazing and insane. I am just absolutely blown away by them. I would see solar images people took but assumed what you see in the eyepiece just isn't the same. But wrong, you see all the detail, but actually get more of the 3D effect, especially with the filaments and the filaments curving over to the edge to form a prom are truly amazing as well. Plages may be my favorite feature, love seeing the swirling action around the sunspots. BUT what absolutely blew me away was the first time looking at Jupiter and Saturn last year. The images were TACK sharp. I just happened to catch a moon transit on Jupiter and thought for sure there was something on my eyepiece. That shadow of the moon was so pitch black, tack sharp and obvious, it blew away what I had seen with my 8" Orion Dob Imaging is amazing with it as well. After using it for a while, I kind of regretted ordering the TEC 160 as I would have been totally happy with this fine quality 4" APO. But aperture rules and I don't know if I will get a chance to own a 6"+ FL Triplet again, so I didn't cancel the order and of course love using that scope as well for imaging and observing. I have images on Instagram if anyone wants to see some of what this scope can do, both Solar, Deep Sky and Planetary, @starchecker_162

very good idea about the tape.

Hi Ed, I've got the LS80 and love it. Only has the single stack (so far - they DS module has been out of stock everywhere). Also got the options for configuring into a night scope. Used the Starfield adjustable 0.8x reducer/flattener for night use. Custom 3D printed a ZWO EAF mount for the solar focuser.

Thank you SO much. I inherited this telescope after my dad passed. He didn’t have a chance to use it. Your walkthrough has me excited to pick up where he left. Instructions were printed and not clear (at least for someone who doesn’t speak telescope).

Wanted to get this last year but it was a budget buster. So I got the 60mm Lunt filter, an adapter plate for my TV-85 and a BF-15 blocking filter. Not as amazing as a double-stack Lunt 100, perhaps, but still outstanding.

I love when I see experienced veterans rock an AVX mount. So many of us turn our nose up at them, but really are actually good at everything. Not great, but definitely good. Portable, stable, accurate, great goto, and last but not least, decent for AP(especially wide field, because smaller payloads, like a WO RedCat, for instance) if you don't mind fiddling with it, doing research, and tuning PHD2 parameters. All for $600-700. You simply cant beat it.

I just unboxed my Lunt 100mm telescope. Been waffling for almost a year as to which Lunt to get. Thank you for this walkthrough, and the priceless quote at 28:57, it gets me everytime!

Good review of this optical train, anybody (like me) who's at the low budget end, daystar's quark chromosphere module is a good choice if you already have a decent refractor. But if I had 9k$ id buy this rig no questions asked. Note anything past 80mm aperture, uv energy rejection filter is a must.

Lunt makes incredible telescopes, I only have the 40mm, still. Beautiful little scope.

Great video Ed, I'd love that scope but it's a little above my budget. I use an SCT with a thousand oaks filter which (unlike yours) gives me an orange view of the sun and is pretty good for sunspots. It looks like a good scope though!

the meade Coronado solar max3 was a dual scope day/night scope that came out before this model that came out mid 2018.

An excellent and informative review, thanks! I really admire this product, but I'd probably just get a dedicated H-alpha scope and a grab and go refractor separately. Just my 2 cents. Wonderful video as usual.

I got the 80 mm model after upgrading from an 80 mm Vixen. I agree with everything he said. The scope is beautiful for doubles, lunar, solar and planetary. Visually very crisp. The resolution is slightly limiting, especially if you are used to using something bigger (for me, a 10 inch Dob). Mine is single stacked and the focuser end is very heavy; mount is critical. I hate the finder as you must look towards the sun to see the dot. I liked my old white light finder better, which projected a dot on a bullseye so you looked away from the sun. Instruction are indeed lacking! Case leaves something to be desired as well. My Vixen case had a slot for everything. All my gear fits in the case but some of it does not feel well protected. Overall, very versatile and useful.

I accidently did the same thing with a white light solar filter years ago - took it off with the scope still facing the sun and it burned a hole through an eyepiece cap within seconds, this was with a 90mm f/11 achromat.

Nice video! I actually like these longer form videos from you. I have a silly question, I will probably get some solar film at some point, but what I'm really interested to know is, what would happen if you also used an H-Alpha filter at the eyepiece? To be clear, I mean using the film and the filter at the same time. Could you gain some fraction of the sharpness of these expensive scopes by cutting out the unwanted wavelengths?

I have a Lunt 40mm. It's great.

I have a Lunt 50mm. I dream of the 100mm. Goals.

100mm is a very good size and competively priced option for the amateur's use.

Thanks for the great review Ed. I have changed the comment to avoid confusion.

Great video; I've recently ordered an 80mm after 15 years of shooting sunspots on a tele lens with mylar. But I do wish everyone could stop with the "my wife hates telescopes" trope; stuff like this keeps women from being interested in the first place. Loads of us are astrophotographers and astronomers.

Great review, Ed! I'd love to have one of these, but I think I'll have to stick to my Coronado single stack PST. My wallet just isn't that deep yet... 👍 Speaking of safety... I managed to burn the crosshairs out of my 10x50mm finder while fiddling with the stack of welding glass filters that I had cobbled together for it during the last United States total solar eclipse. We were looking through my celestron c130 on an asgt mount... Oops...! I had to borrow a couple of strands of my wife's dark hair and superglue to remake the crosshairs... 🙄

During the Solar Eclipse of Aug 1999 here in Austria my wive wanted to look throgh my 8'' Dobsonian at the sun. At the last moment I could prevent it. The filter was not attached yet.

If you don’t want to spend $7,000+ on your own solar telescope, check with your local astronomy clubs/observatories… many own one or more of these and have “daytime” viewing sessions. Everyone should take a look at the sun through H-alpha at least once in their life, without having to make a humongous investment 😊

How about a video describing the items necessary for solar for existing scopes?

Eyeing that credit card!

I’ve made use of the Celestron alignment ‘sync’ of the sun and moon, to actually ‘Goto’ see Venus and Jupiter in the mid-noon sky. It’s very cool, and you will whao a lot of people. Once you confirm this, please make a RU-vid tutorial, because 99% of the friends don’t know this function at all.

Thanks for the video! Just one suggestion: I think you should end every gear review by confirming that I'm actually saving money by buying this stuff. It's not a hobby, it's a savvy financial investment. 😂

Nice review. I want one, too bad it's only going to be a dream haha

I got a cheap refractor when I was in my early teens... they actually included a 1.25in sun filter... even as clueless about astronomy as I was... I wasnt daft enough to look through it (hey they tell you to look at an eclipse shadowed on a card or paper... after all. The only way I would look through a scope at the sun... is if its setup by someone who knows or has done it) Most of the time they crack... can you imagine looking through a refractor at the sun... and the filter just breaks apart? rather not think about it

Great video Ed👍 The sun just doesn’t float my boat I’m afraid. Probably due to the fact that it’s been visible to me my entire life.

Ed I fried my CCD sensor when I rolled the observatory roof off during the day, I usually keep the cap off if ive been imaging to allow moister to evaporate, just forgot to put it back on.

A few other points outside of the novel I just wrote. I agree the case is a sticking point, not being able to keep the scope assembled in doublestack mode is a pain. Fortunately, I don't travel with it much, just outside on my deck I see when you had the double stack set up, you left the black spacer behind the first etalon. That's actually supposed to be removed in DS mode. Amazing you were able to achieve focus, not sure what else that might affect having that gap between them like that. I only knew to watch out for that reading about a guy on Cloudy Nights laughing that he thought the scope was defective as he couldn't get anything but a big fuzzy blob out of it, that's when Faye asked if he had removed the spacer. Although I haven't had an issue in solar mode with the thumbscrews, I definitely have had an issue with the etalons removed and putting the nighttime focuser in. That does have a very small flange and several times I have found out after the fact it wasn't really seated correctly. But then I saw them assemble it on a table standing vertical on the dew shield. By putting it together vertically it helps, but still not ideal. I wish it fit more like the first etalon with a long piece that helped align it into the scope. Finally, the Zoom Eyepiece. I may get burned at the stake for heresy, but I LOVE that eyepiece, it's my go to and I have the 8mm and 13mm TV Ethos eyepieces! Is there a difference, sure, but not a lot, at least to my eyes and I love the ability to fine tune the zoom to that max that the seeing conditions will allow. It's nice to be able to tweak the power to hit the peak of the zoom/sharpness curve. I think that's a lifetime eyepiece for most astronomers and definitely the first one anyone should get when they are ready to upgrade from the cheap Ploessls includes with most beginner scopes.

I left an eyepiece in my 17.5 in Dobsonian. I think the heat created enough pressure that the cap popped off the end of the scope. My neighbor said she saw it pop off about 11am. The scope happened to be pointed directly where the sun would be about 1pm.... About 12:45 I got a call from a guy up the street that said there was smoke coming from my driveway and the lady across the street came out as I was running to the scope to cover it. The sun didn't line up exactly but it would have. The lady across the street said a blinding light came out of the side which I assume was the eyepiece. With just a glancing blow on a day with a lot of big puffy clouds I got lucky. The inside of the front lip of the square tube was charred pretty bad. I think the beam of light that was seen through the smoke missed the spider. The smoke obscured the sun enough to keep the whole thing from bursting into flames. The scary part was the fact that the light BARELY reached the mirror and was a glancing blow for a couple seconds BETWEEN clouds. As I stood there I realized it was only 10 minutes away from direct sunlight straight down the tube with no clouds for the rest of the afternoon.... Scary.

$6500 starting price. $1800 for 2nd stage. I have high respect for people who actually. Is this high precision and highly specialized solar scope!

I do want one! But the price is too high for me. The price is not unreasonable, if you look into how the etalon technology works. We're talking bandwidths of less than an angstrom when high quality, and expensive, night filters are three angstroms. So I don't think the price is in any way unreasonable, it just happens to be beyond what I'm willing to spend.

Hi Ed I bought myself a skywatcher explorer 130m as a first telescope.trying to understand the eq mount but very excited indeed!

Excellent review! I was just wondering if the 80mm would suffice for solar observing and casual night time observing. I think there is a good cost benefit argument there. Or is 100mm the going minimum size nowadays for a refractor?

I am just a casual observer and have owned only one telescope a celestron 8 that I bought back in 1973 from a retailer I found in sky and telescope, Roger W Tuthill. Mr Tuthill also made accessories for the c8 one of which was a solar filter with a metal ring that fit snugly on the front of the c8 and the filter material was sheets of mylar that were aluminized, think it was patented as 'solar skreen'. It displayed amazingly detailed images much like the h-alpha image you showed, that is with granulation and lots of detail. It was a bluish cool type of image. I have to wonder if solar skreen is still available as I haven't used that filter in years and don't know if I should trust it presently. Sadly Mr Tuthill and his business are long since gone.

Hi, Ed - for white light solar, I've always found that the sun creates its own bad seeing. The heat in the air causes rising currents, reducing the ability to get to higher magnifications. I haven't used it very much, but I think that the little 40mm PST hits that spot of maximum magnification - because you're not going to get good views above, say 40-50x anyway. What do you think about that?

Did you ever find out the make and model of that astronomical focuser?

I’ve always wanted to view the sun directly through the telescope (with a solar filter of course) I use to project it onto a white board with a small tasco telescope, but one day it fell over and broke off the tripod

great review. Solar observing is for sure on my radar. How would the views compare to buying an etalon and whatever filter / diagonal I need for my Televue 85?

I'm wondering if you can see movement of the suns surface when looking through an alpha filter. Would love to know what you think of the 40mm personal solar scope that selles for about 600 dollars.

I once looked through a 114mm Newton Reflector - WITHOUT a filter... 5 min I only saw orange. Lucky me nothing worse happened

Damn you Mr Ting. You shouldnt show me such things. Particularly when someone in Aus has a 130mm Lunt ,single stacked and a Eq6R mount for sale.

Did you buy back that grey Takahashi FC-100 from Mike? I thought you sold it a while back to him? Did he finally let you buy it back from him? I just bought one of the grey ones, year 1985, it has a Multi-Coated replacement lens instead of the original one (Tak must have replaced it under warranty at some point in the 1990's I suppose). Does yours have the MC lens with the purple coatings, or the original one with mono or no coating on the front Flint lens? If it's the original non-MC lens, is the lens still clear? The original non-MC lenses in the FC series had a reputation for going cloudy, as are most on Yahoo Auctions in Japan. A video review on it would be wonderful to see!

Hi ED, Wonderful video as always. The way You explane things make one understand the point. On Your suggestion I have the Orion 200mm Dobson, and I love it. It's been a while using him and now I want something else. Now I am planning to buy one of these, or perhaps the 80mm. Are they both that good? The older You get, the more money You can save and now I feel it is time to spend it. Something I can not find anywhere is a suggestion for a finder installation on the astronomical mode of the scope. Can You (or someone else on this forum) help me with this? Thanks folks.

I'm curious if anyone's used the Calcium K for long nighttime exposures? It'd probably take a huge objective to get anywhere near enough light to image planets, stars or DSOs.

Something I am not sure on, is the first filter for the Ha configuration actually behind the OTA? So there is nothing like a filter on the front of the scope?

yesterday I've been going through forums and your site readimh about scopes, i'm intrested in evostar 150 mm ed or the ES127 ed, problem is cost and quality, i got my self a tak fc100 dc and a pentax 3.5, with a hot humid turbelant weather and around bortle 7 skies where only vega, deneb and altair along with arcturus showing, saturn was just phenomenal, with a manual mount, but i need more mag, should i get the 150 or 127mm or would the tak work more witb a good eye piece?

Does the fpl53 glass has a benefit for daytime use or is an old model also good enough

Hi, is there a red glow with the double stack? Is it annoying? Is it still there when using a Binoviewer ? Thanks!

What’s a Hershel wedge ?

Even with the filter, I would probably hook a camera to the eyepiece, and watch only through a digital display.

Hey, Ed! It's interesting that you mention the yellowing of the eyes (cataracts) and how one can see better through the Calcium K filter after undergoing surgery for their removal. I expect to undergo this procedure in the near future and my optometrist told me that everything would be brighter and that colors would be more vivid. Does this also mean that I will maybe be able to see dimmer stars at night?

Unfortunately a much more difficult pricetag if you don't live in the US. Here in the EU, a 100mm SINGLE stack without any accessories (e.g. Ca-K-module) costs an equivalent $11500. Import taxes on optics are ludicrous. Still, great video on this Ed! Nice to see what it's capable of.

Thanks for the great review Ed! I think I'll be ordering this scope pretty soon. Seems like a great all around telescope for solar and nighttime astro! However, does anybody know if it supports full frame sensors at night with the Lunt 0.8x field flattener/reducer? Or would crop sensors and smaller be a better recommendation? I can't seem to find any info about its corrected image circle on the web. Thanks!

Hi, I just bought a Lunt 60 tilt tuned solar telescope for visual. Use it a few Times , it's ok but I still can say the words " wow " . I beginning to worry, that I will not love this scope... is Lunt a good company ...? Thanks for the tip!!

Is optically Lunt good? Is it on level of Tak or Esprit? Thanks

Thanks for the video! I’m curious to know if you have ever tried the white light filter up front, and a narrowband H-alpha filter at the eyepiece. Does that produce a similar image? Surely nothing will be as good as the double stacked Lunt, but maybe less superior prominences for a price much less than $6500?

Sorry this is off subject- don't know how else to reach you. Meade is recommending a 19 pound tripod for a 62 pound scope. My original Inquiry to Meade: "I’m seeing where your website says the Meade Standard Field Tripod is designed for the Meade 10" f/10 LX200 ACF Telescope". I questioned them and the response was " I would say yes, although I understand why you were concerned. For example the stock "10 inch f/10 LX200 ACF Telescope with Field Tripod" bundle says that the tripod only weighs 19 lbs. These thick steel leg designs are very robust in our experience.." I remember Ed Ting recommending a scope about half the weight of the tripod.

Daystar Quark is also a great option if you already have a telescope.

the ls100mt is $10k from astroshop in europe :(

Honey . I’m saving money by buying this ………………………. ❤

Hoping you would address how to tune the etalons.

$6500 but you save the cost of having to buy a red flashlight/headlight. Telescope math. Want to hear about the chair you had with the wheels on it.

PSA: PSS! Thanks Ed!

👍👍

28:53 Just learnt one more thing to tell my wife 😆

During the Venus transit, can't quite remember, if 2004 or 2012, there was an article about someone's backyard observatory turned to ashes after the guy left the observation platform briefly, for a while and inadvertently, not having covered /filtered the finder scope, with the telescope tracking the sun...bingo...light a cigar... 😱😨👻

Where did you get that foldable chair from?

Curious to know the type of chair (small black and looked adjustable) you were using in the background while outside? Thanks

Hey, I was wondering if you could put the etalons in the opposite order?

Can I use the lunt calcium k module on an f / 8.3 achromatic refractor ?

Ed i need help! im investing in the Meade Lightbridge 12" dobsonian and i dont know if it is worth the hype

Solar observation is the most painful thing to do, I just can't seem to find the sun through my scope, and I don't want to take the solar filter off and put it in front of the finder because obviously, I don't want to burn my telescope

How long ago did you make this video Ed? Why are you wearing a puffer jacket in late July? 😄