Direct hit.....

[JohnG]

Hi all

Must apologize for not being around much of late, the area I live in (South-West Slopes region of NSW) had the biggest thunder/electrical storm in living memory about a week or so ago.

I suffered a direct hit on the house, through my Weather Station, as a result I still have not found most of the bits of the weather station, lol, unfortunately the strike caused a lot of damage to other parts of the house. Needless to say, the massive electrical surge destroyed a lot of gear and equipment, computers etc, unfortunately the surge went through the earth line and caused havoc in the Observatory, totally destroyed my computer system in there, the worst was that it has totally destroyed the electronics on my Takahashi NJP mount :mad2:, thought it had destroyed the CCD camera but I was able to get it going on my laptop and it appears to be all right until I can test it outside. All covered by Insurance but that wont help with the NJP mount, it appears that Takahashi don't make the Temma 2 conversion kit anymore, not sure what is going to happen with that.......

Last time I saw thunder and lightning like that was in the tropics when I was in the Navy and stationed out of Cairns, long time ago, lol.

:cloudy:

Cheers

[allan gould]

John
So sorry to hear of the lightning strike on the house and observatory. You must be heartbroken about the mount. It's hard to have a piece of equipment you use night after night and it performs for you and then to have it fried like that is like seeing a friend go.
Wish there was something I could do.
Hope you get back into the game soon.
Allan

[astroron]

:hi:John, glad you are alright:)
It must have been quite frightening:eyepop:
Lightening is one of my big fears living out here.
Sorry to hear about you house and gear:sadeyes:
I hope you can get back to normal soon
soon:)
Cheers

[niko]

Jeez John,

glad to hear you are okay but what a bugger about the gear. Hopefully insurance will help cover the replacements costs.

Look after yaself mate - there's whacky weather out there.

niko

[mishku]

Shocking news, but glad you're ok!!

[AstralTraveller]

Were you in the house at the time?? It must have been terrifying. I'm glad it was only equipment that was fried.



Oh yuk. Did you mean that? :P

[rally]

John,

Really sorry to hear about your misfortune.

I have two spare NJP (Temma series) motors that you can have or buy if that helps
I have a spare hand control as well, but not a Temma controller unit.

Cheers

Rally

[GeoffW1]

Hi John,

Commiserations ! Glad to hear there was no-one injured at your place tho. Hope the recovery goes smoothly, it might be an opportunity for that new model bit of gear we all lust secretly after.

Cheers

[JohnG]

Thanks guy's

Yep, was in the house, was deaf for about an hour after the bang :lol:, I actually thought, this is it..........

The whole street suffered damage, guy next door suffered a heap of damage as well.

Was lucky that I had all my photos and data backed up on a removeable HD.

Biggest concern is about my mount, I don't know how I am going to go with that, will have to wait until the insurance assessment next Tuesday.

Cheers

[Baddad]

Not good at all John.
At least you are OK. I can relate to lightning strike damage. Been through a couple here. I sort know how you feel.

Hopefully insurance will cover the lot.

Cheers

[jjjnettie]

Commiserations John. That would have been an awful experience. Hope everything is sorted out soon.

[JohnG]

Thanks for that, sent you a PM.

Cheers

[mswhin63]

Sorry to hear of the travesty hope you get everything back on track soon.

[casstony]

Something I've wondered about is can the surge jump accross power switch contacts even if the switch is turned off? Did any equipment get damaged that was plugged into a switched off power point John?

[bert]

Hi John,

You can also use an fs2 goto kit for your njp. I have a buddy that uses the kit with his em200, he is happy with it.

http://www.telescope-service.de/FS2/start/FS2.html#takahashi

Regards
Brett

[JohnG]

Unfortunately it was plugged in but the power points were off, the storm was so bad and came in so quickly that I could not get outside to the Observatory to pull the leads, the hail was intense. I think the mount was damaged by the surge going through the RS232 cable attached to the computer, don't think one can anticipate that.

Cheers

[Liz]

Very scary stuff!! I love a good thunder and lightning show, but as long as its 10 km away at least. When its close to the house, its terrifying!!:help:

Thankgoodness for insurance, but still a pain to get it all up and going again, but glad you are Ok. :)

[JohnG]

Thanks Brett :thumbsup:

It is in the hands of the insurance company now.

Cheers

[Ric]

Not good news at all John, glad to hear your ok though.

That was a massive storm the other week and we experienced a few strikes around us as well. Fortunately they were far enough away not to have any effects on our electricals.

I hope you are able to get your gear sorted out.

[Karls48]

Yes it can and it will. Depending on the distance from the strike it can jump couple meters or more. I have seen TV and stereo system completely destroyed by discharge that jumped out of power point at least two meters away. It was unpluged from the power point.

[Poita]

I have pretty hefty surge gear on everything, but little will protect you from a direct hit. All of my RS232 gear is opto-isolated though, which stops death via serial port.

If you get nowhere with it all, a board level repair may be possible, let me know if you get stuck.

[ballaratdragons]

Wow John, not good news mate!
Good that you are unharmed though.

Hope you get it sorted easily. :thumbsup:

We have a big thunderstorm warning for tomorrow. They say it will be a biggy!

[Tandum]

John, Lightning can really cause some damage. I've assessed a few strikes and it really gets into everything.

Tak Japan lists an upgrade option to temma2M for some mounts. Maybe they can do the NJP as well.

You'll need to translate this to read it.
http://www.takahashijapan.com/ct-news/news_110113T2M.html

[JohnG]

Hi Karl

That is what happened to the guy next door, completely destroyed his stereo, also blew his set top box to pieces. :eyepop:

Cheers

[JohnG]

Thanks for the concerns, guys :thumbsup:

Was a bit of a scary event, those that know me know that nothing really phases me but I got to admit, this one did....

I have checked with the AU Tak dealer and found that Takahashi don't have the Temma 2 conversion anymore for the NJP mount.

Just have to wait until Tuesday when the assessor arrives.

Cheers

[h0ughy]

not good news John - but glad you are still walking ;)

[ngcles]

Hi John & All,

Well, they say it never strikes twice in the same place so the future looks rosy!

Best wishes with the recovery !


Best,

Les D

[Octane]

Wow, John. That's terrible news. I know how much you loved that mount, too.

Hopefully, everything comes through with insurance.

H

[erick]

That must have been a great shock. Sorry to hear of the damage, John.

[JohnG]

:rofl::rofl: good one Eric, :thumbsup:

Cheers

[erick]

Woops, I actually didn't mean that. I wanted to say "terrible" but I saw H had beaten me to that word in the post before.

I was actually wondering how your heart survived the BANG! I bet you felt the adrenaline!

[byronpaul]

John,

that's not good, but glad to hear you yourself are fine.

Just as well you were inside and not in your observatory, or even worse your little portable Snake Valley observing tent ..... that would have been an experience :eyepop:.

[Jen]

:eyepop: yikes John that would have been a scarey experience i hope you can replace all your gear ok good luck with the insurers ((hugs))

[brian nordstrom]

:sadeyes:Ouch John , I hear you , we get those powerful storms on a daily basis up here in Darwin this time of the year .
All my gear gets un :thumbsup:plugged every night before bed and if the storms aint to bad plugged in when I get home after work the next afternoon ;) It's just the done thing here .
Sorry to hear the damage that was done , a good strike will take ' no ! ' :confused2: prisoners .
Ive seen a few good strikes happen up here and waste a TV or 2 .
Brian.

[DavidU]

Damn ! all things aside I'm glad your ok.Insurance will take care of the rest.

[seeker372011]

Sorry to hear about this, John
Hope you can get your mount sorted out somehow
Narayan

[acropolite]

That's bad news John, if you can, make sure you get anything with the slightest damage replaced; don't accept repair unless it's the whole electronic assembly replaced.
Most of our PABX suppliers refuse to attempt repair as there are usually ongoing problems that surface long after the repair, our experience with repairs has been the same.

[erick]

How are the repairs/replacement going, John?

[JohnG]

Still waiting, Eric.

Building side of things went ahead fairly quickly but wont be done until the end of the month :shrug:.

Contents........still waiting, pain in the a***e, no one has even been out to assess them yet, a straight to the point email has failed to elicit a response, maybe Monday or Tuesday :mad2:

Thanks for the concern.

[mishku]

Fingers crossed for a quick (er than it has been so far!) resolution for you, John!!