Warm weather at night, but skies completely conceiled by a high overcast. For the past week. With light pollution to add insult.
All the well, I've taken a sturdy cardboard box and a sharp knife and began constructing my aperture mask. I did the calculations and I'll need to make a 4" hole to stop the scope down to f/12. As I'm working on this, I'm thinking how I can make the aperture mask be adjustable in size. I'm thinking, by using self-adhesive velcro strips, I can make a series of concentric rings of cardboard and reduce the aperture in 0.5" increments by adding rings.
Anyhow, my main goal here is observing the sun. While reading about doing this, I've learned about the different wavelengths differnet parts of the Sun gives off. Coronas, promenences, etc. The holy grail of solar observing appears to be adding a special filter to one's collection, specifically a Hα (Hydrogen Alpha) filter, but prices for these appear to be in the thousands of dollars. I guess it's due to the very very small and certain wavelengths of light they allow through (we're talking half an angstrom in size.) These filters bring out details one normally would not see. Oh well.