Quote:
Originally Posted by peter_4059
Ray - can you comment on the success of the aluminium tape to prevent dew formation?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dp297
That would be nice to know...
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As far as I know, Anthony Wesley pioneered the idea of low emissivity for amateur scopes (in Australia at least) by using unpainted aluminium tubes for his planetary scopes.
I did some measurements and confirmed that GSO painted steel would drop well below the ambient air temperature due to radiative cooling from the cold sky - which is a lot colder than ambient at the zenith (maybe -40C). That can overcool the air around the tube and turns the scope into a dew magnet - just like the roof of a car. Rather than build new OTAs, I wrapped the existing tubes with adhesive aluminium tape - tried flashing tape and aluminised ducting tape from Bunnings - both worked OK, although the duct tape is much lighter in weight.
Aluminium has low thermal emissivity, so the scope tube does not cool as much through radiation and stays much closer to the air temperature. Dew is less of a problem, although the blackened interior of the OTA and other parts of the scope still drop the temp a bit up the front end. Definitely works though - I have only had two occasions where dew was a problem in the past couple of years - everything around the scope can be wet, but the ota will generally still be relatively dry.
Don't know how it would go on anything but a Newtonian - something with glass up the front will get cold, since glass has high thermal emissivity and it will generally be pointing close to the zenith. I guess that is why dew shields are needed on SCTs and refractors - they restrict the amount of cold sky that the glass can "see". It would probably still help though if the tube itself did not cool below ambient, so aluminium tape might be beneficial.
An emergency thermal blanket or aluminium foil can be easily wrapped around things if you want to experiment and are concerned with what your scope looks like. Al tape is pretty permanent and looks daggy after while - it is soft and ends up with dings and scuff marks in normal use. I view a new GSO scope as a starting point and don't care too much what it ends up looking like, but it might be different for a Tak owner, who will probably have paid more for the paint than I pay for a complete scope.
regards ray