Some Do's and Don'ts for solar observing.

Don't ever look directly into the sun without a filter on your telescope for solar observing.(It will literally cook your eye .So please do not try it unless you want to be blind all of your life.)

Don't let your telescope sit pointed at the sun unless you are viewing through it and have a filter on .(A friend of mine did this not on purpose but he did it and he has a cardboard tube telescope verses a metal one and you can just guess what happened. The telescope did not burn up but he does have a large singe mark on the outside and inside of the scope.)

Don't buy an eyepiece solar filter.These kind of solar filters are very  dangerous and have been known to melt and that's not good. Buy an over the tube filter, which you can purchase at either Orion telescope or thousand oaks optical.

Don't expect to see solar flares with just a normal solar filter. In order to see solar flares you need what is called an H-Alpha filter. You can buy these separate but they are very expensive.What I recommend is the PST telescope it has everything built into it.You don't have to buy anything for it.It comes with an eyepiece and everything. You can use your own eyepieces as well. And the price is a fraction of the cost of buying a custom H-Alpha filters.

Do observe through other peoples telescopes with a solar filter attached to it to see if it is for you.I have yet to see an amateur astronomer say no to someone wanting to look through there telescope. Astronomers love for other people to be interested in their hobby.

Do use a piece of welding glass to find the sun through your finder scope.IT can be very hard to find the sun in a telescope.You wouldn't think so because it is very large but it can be tough to do.If you go to your local hardware store and buy a piece of the darkest welding glass that you can find and hold it in front of your finder scope you will not have any problem looking through the finder to find the sun. 

Here is a list of websites for more info on solar observing.         
 Thousand Oaks
Orion telescopes
General solar observing
PST telescope