[Aavso-photometry] Re: How cold is too cold?

[Geir Klingenberg]

Hi

On Wed,  5 Jan 2005 20:53:54 +0200, Pertti Pääkkönen
<ppaakko at cc.joensuu.fi> wrote:
> After this adventure I had to recover two hours in extremely hot sauna!

Yeah, I believe it! I hate to freeze and that is one of the reasons
why I built my backyard observatory, so now I can control my telescope
from indoors while having a warm cup of coffee ;-)

As Michael K. I had problems with my mount below -15 deg C or so. I
removed the lubricants and used some synthetic stuff instead and there
has been no problems since.

I keep the CCD camera (ST-7) mounted to the telescope and it cold
starts without problems. But the PC has to be warm started. Other than
that I have not had any problems with the electronics in the
observatory (I have been observing down to -25 deg C).

I am more worried about humidity than cold, so I cover up the
telescope and use a 60 W light bulb inside the cover to prevent
condensation. I believe it is more stressful for the camera to be
taken from +25 C to -25 C and back than keeping it in the observatory
as long as it is kept dry...?

Geir Klingenberg