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

[Arto.Oksanen at tietoenator.com]

After relubricating (and replacing the RA drive assembly!) the 10-inch Meade LX200 it has also worked in cold temperatures. 

We use small heaters under both telescopes to keep them dry from frosting and condensation. Before we also used light bulbs, but as they dont last too long we got new heaters. The new heaters are very compact 15x10x5 cm and have no moving parts. They have regulated inside temperature of 100 C and radiators on the outside surface. 

arto 
--
Arto Oksanen                         arto.oksanen at jklsirius.fi
Jyvaskylan Sirius ry, Kyllikinkatu 1, FI-40100 Jyväskylä, Finland 
Tel: +358-40-5659438                         Fax: +358-14-4157803
Nyrola Observatory  http://www.ursa.fi/sirius/nytt/nytt_info.html 

-----Original Message-----
From: aavso-photometry-bounces at mira.aavso.org [mailto:aavso-photometry-bounces at mira.aavso.org] On Behalf Of Geir Klingenberg
Sent: 6. tammikuuta 2005 2:18
To: aavso-photometry at aavso.org
Subject: Re: [Aavso-photometry] Re: How cold is too cold?


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

_______________________________________________
Aavso-photometry mailing list
Aavso-photometry at mira.aavso.org
http://www.aavso.org/mailman/listinfo/aavso-photometry