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Using a hair drier can ruin the figure on your lens for a long time. So if you start getting blurry images it may be from doing that.
Dew control seems to be done in several ways:
1. Dew Strap heaters - I started a thread on this myself about 3 weeks ago. Basically there are Kendrick, Dew-Not, AstroZap. And several controllers. I picked Dew-Not and DewBuster control unit with sensors.
For me it was more about power consumption as I use a generator and I know anything that heats uses lots of electricity. The Dew-Not uses about half the Kendrick although Kendrick have a film based dew heater which may use less. I notice dew strap companies offer heating solutions to heating the secondary mirror.
The controller has air sensors so it only cuts in the dew heater once the temp of the scope/mirror gets close to the air ambient temp. Hopefully again this saves power. You have mains power so not really relevant in your case unless you later want to go to a dark site and use a battery in which case it is relevant.
2. Insulation on the tube. Flocking the inside of the tube, putting an insulation wrap around the tube especially around the tube where the mirror is means the mirror is always a bit warmer than ambient and with falling air temps you should delay dew until the temp drop slows and the mirror catches up to ambient and you get dew.
3. Fans. Fans pulling air through the scope can reduce the onset of dew. The fan needs to suck air out of the tube flowing air over the mirror.
4. A dewshield.
Per the AstroPhysics data sheet that came with my scope Roland does not advise the use of hair driers but if you absolutely have to then run it on cold air and if no go then only the slightest of heat played around using the back of your hand to gauge the temp. He says using a drier will ruin the figure of the optics for a long time until it cools down again.
Greg.
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