This is what happens if you leave your gear out for 2 months unused...

[codemonkey]

Barring a quick check to get my new focuser / OAG in sync, I don't think I've managed to use my gear since November. Terrible weather and the few breaks coinciding with me being away or otherwise busy.

Anyway, I've decided to build a pier (and probably eventually an obs, but the pier is the important part for now) and I needed to get a measurement from the NEQ6, so off to the back paddock I went, where my mount and RC8 had been sitting, rugged up in Telegizmos since they were last used.

Pro tip: if you're going to do that, at least plug the focuser when you leave it.

[redbeard]

Wow, that's looks amazing!

If you blow air into the eyepiece holder, do your hear a sound coming out. The 'growth' looks like some sort of musical instrument.

Is that easy to clean and is that a nest or something else?

Cheers,

Damien

[Hans Tucker]

Mud Wasp nest?

[strongmanmike]

Meth lab!!! call the police :eyepop:

[LewisM]

Mud wasp or Hornet.

I leave mounts out occasionally - 1 waterproof sleeping bag, 3 tarps - each bungy / okie strapped tightly around the mount so nothing bigger than an ant can crawl in (I use lithium grease on any crawly ingress points - they get stuck IF they try). Top that off with a LARGE plastic bucket from Bunnings over the entire head, also bungied down.

Stayed out in hail and driving rain - nada. Checked on hot days - cool. I would spray it down with lithium grease on the tripod legs, WD40 and Ballistol elsewhere once a week.

I would NEVER leave a scope out. EVER.

I once cleaned a Tak FSQ-106N of a friend here who shall remain nameless :) He always left it out too. Spiders under the focuser cover, small snail shells here and there. Seized rusty screws, cap bolts and grub screws and a pitted chrome pinion. Sorry Mr. XYZ but you can clean and deoxidise your Losmandy G11 yourself... all those rusty screws and aluminium anodising turning bad... :)

Check the rest of your optics...

[traveller]

NGC 2015 the hornet nest nebula....

[codemonkey]

haha, it might have made an interesting sound but I didn't try blowing into it. A number of grubs did fall out of it though. It's some kind of wasp nest.

One of the last times I was up a wasp stung me on the hand... probably the same thing.



All looks pretty good after cleaning out the nest. It's an RC8 so there's no glass, just mirrors. I left my ED80 out for extended periods of time and I've never had a problem, but I'm not going to be leaving things out anymore until they're better protected.

I'm a lazy bugger and it's about 300m walk up to the paddock where I keep do my imaging and I already have to carry a bunch of stuff, so I figured I'd leave my scope up under the Telegizmo. Never really thought too much about insects and I was happy with the weather-proofing the covers provide. Ah well, I'll not make the same mistake twice so let's put it down to experience ;-)