Thanks Gentlemen,
there is a lot of technical information out there & then a tremendous amount of opinion to go along with it & it is quite difficult to figure out whether it's worth the investment or not.
All of my gear is stowed inside the house, things in sealed, airtight boxes are loaded with dessicant satchels which I change out reasonably regularly. Leaving anything in a closed cupboard up here is a big no - no, including clothes & shoes, things just grow mould.. we have our main wardrobes designed with louvred doors to keep air circulating & our fans on moving air almost 24/7...
A photographer friend of mine put me onto the UV-C idea, he uses it & swears by it but, he got his setup from a mate who has food hygiene industry contacts but, isn't in Cairns anymore... he also mentioned the removal of UV filters too...
I'm meticulous in letting my gear dry out after a nights viewing, everything has caps removed, turned to allow moisture to run off, the dew up here is beyond crazy, especially in our wet season...
I might just try putting things out in the sun (when the dry season gets here, eventually)... Thus far, apart from the inside of my SCT corrector plate (which I have now cleaned) I have managed to avoid mould (as far as I know but, I'm paranoid about it) so want to embark upon a proven prevention method rather than scrambling to try & clean things when it's noticed because, it's almost impossible to get it all once it's there...
You guys have given me a few promising leads that I have investigated a little more fully & on a cost basis, the philatelic lights look like they might do the trick with some small modification.. so, if I end up going that route the plan is to then attach one to an extension lead in a separate room so, I can set it up over a couple of eyepieces or a scope, walk out of the room & then turn it on, thus avoiding the dangers of UV-C light...
Not sure just yet.. bit more reading to do before I commit
Cheers
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Originally Posted by Ukastronomer
Just remember a UV lamp is useless if things like camera lenses have UV coatings the light wont work because it obviously won't penetrate the UV coatings
DON'T leave gear in closed cupboards, let air circulate none of my gear gets stored with caps on
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bojan
Another possibility is to use mercury lamp (like ones used for street illumination).
You just need to break the outer shell (with fluorescent material) and extract the inner tube.
I was using such prepared lamps for EPROM erasure and as exposure lamp when making my own PCB's
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Huey
What about the UV sterilizers that people use in fish tanks? They plug straight into mains power and can probably be used without water (although I'm not sure). I know they definitely keep fish tanks algae free.
Huey
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisV
At my work biosafety cabinets have uvc light to kill bugs. BUT it only supposedly works if it hits then directly, not through anything. Plus the guidelines say (I think) that it is not enough alone. There are problems of bug contamination if it is the only thing used.
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