Auckland got hit with a howler last night, 145 kph winds, heavy rain, Big trees blown down, power outages, minor flooding.
Went out to check the garden this morning and discovered the Observatory roof in the neighbours garden ! Everything inside is wet and scattered.
Pulled the scopes and mount head off the pier, shifted all the accessories into the house then put up a temporary roof of some old corrugated iron and a tarp. The roof is totally munted, buckled and twisted. PC's seem ok as they were under a desktop which protected them but probably have to replace the screens and keyboard. Scopes all wet but should be ok as they were all capped. Mount is drying out and hopefully should be ok too ( fingers crossed )
Now the weather is brightening up, rain is gone and I've got a days work to build a new roof system ...
Probably going to be brilliant skies for the next week or two and I'm completely offline.
Sorry to hear you problems!
Sounds as if you may be lucky and get out of it without too much expensive damage....
How was the roof locked to the walls???
I've been using a couple of turnbuckles to lock the roof on the TSOIII and touch wood, notwithstanding some horror weather in Europe, no issues.
Held down with some hooks that wrap over the roof framing but it was pretty lightweight. This wind has done some serious damage and we've still got 50,000 people without power and some huge trees taken out, crushed cars, truck blown over etc. Biggest we've had for some time. Only a few minor injuries though thanks goodness.
I'll take the opportunity to do full redesign of the roof system. I have an idea for a split pitched roof that will give me some clearance inside when closed so I can leave the Serrurier at home position when I close down. At present the Lunt just clears.
I'd also like to redesign the top of the pier to be more stable and less affected by vibration.
Its an ill wind that blows no one any good.
If you are a little game, remove covers (unscrew panels) to completely dry out any electronic equipment.
Often if the equipment was not powered on and ensuring its dried out, you will resurrect it BUT it must be perfectly dry before powering on. Any moisture within and it will cause shorts and that dirty brown smell.
Also to prevent further corrosion a light spray of a suitable electronic lubricant/anti corrosion oil will help. If you have a technician friend seek their help or get some advice if you are not sure.
Sorry to hear that Brent, hope you get up and running again soon, with an even better roof system!
It was pretty fierce last night, and naturally the power went off just as I was uploading a couple of pics for the IIS calendar competition...
When I went outside this morning it turned out a massive tree has fallen and taken both the power and phone line with it, ripped right off the house.
We were lucky it didn't fall on the house, only into the driveway. Hopefully power is restored soon as the wires are a hazard currently.
Driving to work this morning was interesting, trees were down everywhere and roads completely blocked out in the Waitakere Ranges. It's the worst I've seen in my 11 years here.
Marty: I build PC's and stuff, quite capable of opening up the mount panel. I need to tighten up the controller port screws anyway so that's on the plan tonight. It has only had a few splashes on the side, the scope was above it so I am not anticipating any problems and the hand controller was tucked away as well. Just keeping fingers crossed
Rolf: I thought of you up in the Waitaks. Glad to hear you didn't take any damage to your setup. Power etc is a nuisance but at least the power companies responsibility. Yeh, roads were really trashed. Trees down in Ponsonby across the side road by the old Post Office building ( now Three Lamps Bar ) and down College Hill in the Hospice grounds.
Few boats broken free of moorings as well. Could have been worse though.
That's good. Just something you may not be aware of. I learnt about it a long time ago while I was technicianing in the Army.
The design of a lot of equipment appears to be good enough that splashes will do no harm. Which appears to be good and seems to work. Yet we found several items had water inside. Weather had been fine. Equipment had not been near water.?????
What was happening? During the day air was warming and expanding. Which drove some air out of the equipment. At night the equipment cooled down.
This cooling and warming caused moisture to condense inside the panels.
It was particularly evident when a warm day was followed by a cool air blast during a storm. There was enough water inside to cause corrosion.
If your devices are relatively open enough for air to have a little circulation condensation probably will not occur. It mainly happens to devices with one small opening.
I have had petrol cans in the shed 'suck' in water. In fact one can after a few weeks had a litre of water inside it. The seal under the screw on cap was not sealing completely.
Relocate. The Waikato soldiered on. All good here, hangar roof is still on even, a plus.
Gary
Nah, apparently the skies are full of helicopters or something, worst pollution you could think of.
> Mirko Nah, At least the earth didn''t move here and it was only trees and stuff. Nothing a good session with the chainsaw and some rewiring won't fix.
Cheers Suzy, others have been hit worse though. 150 homes damaged plus quite a few cars etc.
I've just opened the mount panel and it's clean and dry inside. Checked all the scopes (3) and they are moisture free. The only one that got some damp was the RA 8x50 finder and that has just had a couple of hours by the fire to dry out. A squirt of CRC went into the mount electronics and I tightened the loose plug up. I'll power it up tomorrow night to make sure. It's warming up\drying out any residual in the lounge at present.
Looks like I'll have a busy weekend reroofing the Ob ....I don't think Liz wants to see scope bits scattered all over the lounge floor for too long. She has been good about it, quite supportive and it is an opportunity to make some improvements.
Going to be a Cold few nights after that storm for a number of people... All the sheep are wet Just kidding
That is a real bugger... Was in NZ a few years back and we had really bad storms. People lost homes and family members. The Airport was closed and the beaches were just full of litter and timber that had blow back to shore from the fooding rivers... Really Bad....
Hope you get it all sorted soon and all your expensive parts are OK...
Still waiting for the power to come back on here...
Our lines company (Vector) need to disconnect the fuse at the pole, then we have to get an electrician to connect the service line back onto the house. Then Vector have to come back again and turn the power on.
And after that we can finally get the phone line connected.
Oh well, at least it's almost full Moon at the moment, so I won't miss out on too much deep sky imaging
Still waiting for the power to come back on here...
Our lines company (Vector) need to disconnect the fuse at the pole, then we have to get an electrician to connect the service line back onto the house. Then Vector have to come back again and turn the power on.
And after that we can finally get the phone line connected.
Oh well, at least it's almost full Moon at the moment, so I won't miss out on too much deep sky imaging
Except now, as I predicted, the skies are clear and Saturn is just begging to be imaged .....
Well the Ob got a new roof today. Saturday did the 'man shop' at Bunnings for 3 sheets of 7mm exterior ply 2400 x 1200 and some 1800 x 150, 25 mm fence palings plus some 8g x 63mm power screws.
Big measure up Sunday morning and the power driver on charge. 4 and a half hours later and I've got 150mm more headroom, an almost perfect seal at the wall to roof junction and a slide apart roof system. I have yet to make some support rails for the east side of the Ob. The West side already has one. Top gap is sealed by a 100 mm overlap which will get a strip seal to prevent water being pushed up underneath but it means I can push either east or west back and leave the other to cover most of the Ob and keep out dew etc.
Couple of construction shots.
West side roof from underneath and front view of Ob showing the West (left ) and East junction and overlap. Ply guide strips keep it aligned on the top wall edge. I need to improve the sliding surfaces to make it easier to push back but I've got an idea for that.
I know 150 mm extra height doesn't sound like much but it feels more spacious. The original roof was only just above my head. I may need to put some ventilation in now as well, this roof has a much better seal than the original and it could get pretty warm in summer
Everything inside is wet and scattered. 
Just kidding
