Packing up

[Astro Imp]

Last night I had a couple or three hours before being clouded out.

When I came to put my kit away it was all dripping wet.

Following advice from Shane(Moonshane) earlier I left my eyepieces with the caps off in my kitchen until morning, when I checked they had all dried out nicely ready for capping and securing in their foam box.

Following my usual procedure I left the OTA in the garage mirror end elevated with all the caps off along with the finder. This morning I was concerned to see dew over all the optical surfaces, main mirror, secondary, object glass and eyepiece on the finder. Not wishing to put them away in this state I brought them into the house until the surfaces were clear. Then I replaced all the caps and put the OTA away in its bubble wrapped cricket bag which is stored in the garage. I was worried that if it picked up dampness overnight it might do the same over time in it's bag. I checked about 4/5 hours later and all seemed well. Am I right to worry or am I worrying unnecessarily.

[Bizibilder]

You should be fine - you allowed the dew to dry off before packing away. The only thing I would do is maybe not use the bubble wrap as it is plastic and will not allow water vapour to "escape" if it needs to as you move the scope into high/low humidity. An old (very old!) and well washed bedsheet will "breathe" and be more or less fluff free and will keep the dust away as well as providing some soft protection for your kit. The worst that can happen is that you get a few stains on the optical surfaces but these should not be removed unless they become so bad that they start to affect the image quality - i assure you the mirrors can appear quite bad and still work well .

[brantuk]

Yup - I agree - forget the bubble wrap cos the moisture needs to escape - otherwise follow Shane and Rogers advice

[Keiran]

Yep, another one in support of Rogers advice... you could also pop some of them silica sachets in to the EP case.

[glowjet]

Air circulation is extremely important to allow things to dry out, just stand alone in a dry open space, then store capped in a box or cupboard, to keep the wee beasties out, in shed or garage, if you have space, with copious amounts of silica crystals. Your herd of eye pieces, when thoroughly dry, can be retained in doors in their storage case, if you have one, or returned to their original boxes. Your cricket bag, very good for protection, but I think the bag material could well attract moisture in the Winter months, stored in the garage, although not so detrimental to the OTA rust may have an effect on any unprotected steel screws and as there is little or no air circulation if the holder is closed for any length of time, mould could become a problem. You can buy silica and I would be tempted to obtain a good quantity and use this in your bag as a safeguard

John.

[Astro Imp]

Thanks for all the advice, will put this into operation.