Eyepiece dewing

[GrampianStars]

g'day guy's
what are you all doing to keep eyepieces dew free :shrug:
at the scope :doh: & storage
holding them is not an option

I was thinking of heating the eyepiece tray up with some "Nicrome" wire taped on underneath.
but what's a good method at the scope

[acropolite]

I just keep mine in my pocket when not in use, that keeps them a few degrees above ambient and prevents fogging. I also use a 12 Volt hair dryer now and again if the EP in use is fogging up. I think Laurie has a solution using old electric blanket wire. :)

[Dennis]

Kendrick standard dew heater system as seen here:

http://www.kendrickastro.com/astro/dewremover.html

Worked 100% over the last 10 years with no dewing up of my objectives or eyepieces - ever!

Cheers

Dennis

[RAJAH235]

Yep, right again Phil. I use electric blanket heater, just glued under the shelf in my E/Pc box. Works fine. :D L.

[barees63]

cheaper alternative to Kendrick at www.dew-not.com (http://www.dew-not.com) about half the price, very nicely made and they don't charge any extra freight for international orders (!).. I have two of them and they are working great with a homemade controller and small 7aH gel-cell battery.

[sheeny]

I use a home made eyepiece heater (photo attached) which plugs into my home made dew heater controller :D . Mike has another little DIY article about making these... only costs couple of bucks if you can solder. This keeps the dew off the eyepiece in use. The eyepieces in the tray I keep the top cover on until they are used (just rotate them around) and keep the lid of me EP box shut to keep the dew off those I'm not using.

I haven't been sorely tested since I've had the EP heater, but if my EPs fog up even with the top caps on, I'll use the 12V hairdrier to zap 'em.

Hope this helps.

Al.

[spacezebra]

Can you guys post some pics on how they look and how they are positioned.

Would help a novice like me

Cheers Petra

[barees63]

http://www.zitafarm.com/astro/dewnot.jpg

[spacezebra]

Many thanks for the pic

Im not sure if this needs a new thread or can it be answered here.

Can I ask a question about power supplies (has some connection with dew nots)

At the moment the only power concern that I have is a fan for the primary mirror - but my question would be how do you guys connect everything else.

Assuming that you have a dew not for eyepiece
Heater for secondary?
Heater for primary
Argonavis
Servocat
etc

I would be interested to see how you connect everything up and supply power

Cheers
Petra

[JohnG]

Hi Petra

In my Observatory I use 13.8 regulated power, in the field, I use a 40 Amp Hour battery pack with some extra cig sockets for the Dew Heater, Laptop, Losmandy Digital System and anything else I want to plug in.

JohnG

[spacezebra]

Hi John

Many thanks for the reply - Do have a pic - Im a visual person.

Cig=?

Cheers Petra - sorry for the basic question

[JohnG]

Sorry Petra

One of the few bits I dont have a picture of, it is one of those power packs you get from an automotive store for starting a vehicle with a flat battery, I just took the back off and added a couple of extra cigarette sockets to take the plugs on the 12 volt stuff.

JohnG

[sheeny]

G'Day Petra,

My setup is all portable at the moment. I use two "power tanks" - one is 7AH Celecstron Power tank to drive my scope, the other is a 24AH jump starter pack that I run my laptop and my dew heaters from.

The dew heater controller is shown in the DIY articles for building your own Pulse Width Modulated Dew Heater controller. I have dew heaters for my corrector plate (front lens of my scope), my finderscope, my eyepiece and I have another I've made to suit my camera lenses should I do some piggy back photography.

Al.

[spacezebra]

Hi all

Many thanks - will make a trip to Supercheap Auto and check it out - sorry to get of the subject of dewing.

Cheers Petra

[barees63]

Hi Petra, I use a small Panasonic gel-cell 12v battery (7aH) which runs my fan and my dew-controller and sits on one side of my dob base, The Argo Navis I just power using 2 internal AA alkaline batteries since these last for over 40 hours and I didn't want to worry about noise introduced by the PCM dew controller (although mine pulses so slowly it's probably not a big issue). The advantage for me in using a smaller 12v battery is it can ride on the dob base and I have no cables to trip over or catch when rotating the scope. Last time I used the fan and dew-heater for 2 hours and the battery was still over 12.5v so there's plenty of capacity even in a 7aH battery for this stuff.

[spacezebra]

Many thanks for the advice

I did not mean to hijack the original content of the thread - just needed to understand how everything is powered, including the dew nots

I really appreciate all comments

Cheers Petra