Useful Information about the Human Eye

Visual Acuity and Spectrohelioscope Design by Fredrick N. Veio, July 30 2002

The F ratio of a SHS should be about F:45. Assume a 2.7 meter f.l. telescope, a 1.9 meter f.l. spectroscope, a grating 32x30mm ruled area with 1200 gr/mm, 5000A blazed, slits adjusted to about 0.6A passband for H alpha. The solar disk will be comfortably bright to study, all details will be easily seen, even very faint detail.
Eyepiece power will be about 25X. Can use 0.2A passbamd.

A SHS does not show the full diameter of the solar disk to visual examination. Mechanical and optical factors of the solar image synthesizer restrict the instrument to about 20 arc/min by about 30 arc/min field of view, maybe less.

The human eye has maximum sensitivity at green-yellow, call it 100%. In the orange-red for H alpha, about 10% sensitivity. In the violet, about one percent. Only a redesigned SHS and a young person can see the solar disk in violet K light. The cornea of the eyes yellow with age. The main useful wavelength is H alpha light.

For the solar continuum of the sun itself, call it 100%. The yellow sodium lines and the Mg lines are about 8%. The H alpha line is about 16%.The violet H and K lines are about 6%. Strong telluric lines are zero per cent.

The grating efficiency of a 5000A (green) blazed wavelength has about 80% of the light at that wavelength. For the same grating, efficiency at violet will be about 20%. For same grating, efficiency at H alpha will be about 40%.