Solar Observing and photography

To begin, when solar observing do not and I repeat do not look directly into the sun and defiantly do not look at the sun with a telescope without a proper solar filter. A proper filter will fit in the front of your telescope. Now the best time to view the sun is when there is activity on the sun aka sun spots or solar flares. Now solar flares require a special filter(H-alpha) that we will not discuss here but here is a website for more info  http://www.thousandoaksoptical.com/.

 Now solar photography is basically the same as moon photography but you have to be a little more careful when observing and photographing. You will need a tripod and a little Patience. Now your photos will not give you true color because you are using a filter but they will look cool. Especially if you have a H-alpha filter that can view solar flares. Here are several websites with more info. 

 http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/sun/3304286.html   http://sungazer.net/photo.html   http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/01/amazon-solar-ph.html  http://www.daystarfilters.com/