First bath for my new Mak

[Regulus (Trevor)]

A question.
I put my scope out to cool down at sunset and went out 2 hours latter to find;
1 clouds rolling in,
2 air full of wood smoke from heaters, and
3 scope and eps are saturated, not unlike it had been rained upon.

Is it possible that the particulate matter in the wood smoke caused this by attracting moisture from the air the way dust particles do to create rain?

Waiting to see if the Mak fogs up inside now it's back in the house.
Not happy.

[Steffen]

The good thing about telescopes is that they don't mind water much. I know mine have been drenched in dew and rain and always cleaned up spotless. Electronic mounts on the other hand – you have to watch out for those.

Cheers
Steffen.

[raymo]

Hi Trevor. I frequently suffer what you described. If the humidity is high
enough the scope and mount can get soaked. Sometimes, by the end of a session, I have water dripping off of the bottom of my Newt, and off the bottom of the finderscope. I just take it all inside, and wipe off the worst of it with a towel. The OTA suffers more than the mount because the tube's metal is thin, and changes temperature much more quickly.
Being plastic, the hand controller doesn't suffer quite as much as the
OTA either. I used to live in Rosebery, and it was even worse there than where I am now.
raymo

[Tinderboxsky (Steve)]

Hi Trevor,

I have noticed that these fine, still days at the moment are resulting in unusually heavy dews here in the south. As you mention, it feels as though it has been raining. We need some wind to blow the moisture laden air away.

Not sure about the smoke particulate idea, but it could well be a contributor as you suggest.

I leave my wet gear to dry out in an unheated room in the house overnight and then pack away dry the next morning.


Cheers

Steve.

[Sconesbie (Scott)]

I took mine out about 7:00 and about an hour later, it too was a bit dewy. Not wet like you explain though. We had some cloud cover come through about 8:00 and then again by about 9:00, it was clear. Weird.

[LewisM]

I have always used a pedestal fan whenever I image at home - all year round. Does a few things:
1. helps OTA aclimate to ambient faster
2. keeps mozzies away
3. keeps the air moving, and usually means LESS dew issues on the OTA and gear
4. keeps ME cool in summer

It's odd, but I found the Skywatcher scopes I had ALWAYS dewed up (my ED80 and ED100 were absolute dew gluttons), to the point of dripping, whereas the Vixen which was on the other mount, in the same air, suffered FAR less so. In fact, my FL102S becomes at best "frosty" dew (minuscule droplets), compared to actual puddles. The Taks seem to also suffer dewdome very little too - their OTA's are fairly robust, so probably hold temperature longer. Until recently, I never even had any heater straps for the Vixen or Taks.

I also keep my scopes waxed with hard wax, so that may help somewhat too. I redo the waxing every 6 months.

[Regulus (Trevor)]

Raymo: Rosebery and environs are famous for the annual rainfall, let alone other precipitous conditions :-)

It came good with a 'towelling down' and seems in good order. I get a bit concerned about the possibility of future "tropical fungus' incursions, having seen that a lot here in Tas. Still, no point in worrying about a future possibility and just take the sensible precautions all optics require.
Steffen, the electronics really don't swim well do they? I too am mindful of the hand controller on the LXD75.

Lewis those are some interesting observations. I am wondering about the waxing and paintwork and whether, or not, that could possible have an effect on moisture adhering. Maybe I should have mine teflon coated :-)

[raymo]

Thanks for the reply Trevor. I haven't had any fungal problems up to
now [other than athlete's foot when I was a kid ], so I wouldn't be too
concerned.
cheers raymo

[Kunama]

I found in Jindabyne this dewing up was common during the first hour so I just draped a towel over and along the OTA for the first hour........

[multiweb (Marc)]

I got caught in the rain once. Came down out of nowhere. Like a sun shower but at night. I really thought those damn clouds were much further than they looked. Sneaky b4stards.

[acropolite (Phil)]

Trevor, I suspect that smoke laden fog is also quite corrosive, I wouldn't put anything in that weather out without dew heaters down here. The sad thing is as soon as woodfire season is over forestry will start their regeneration burns (usually disguised as hazard reduction).