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Imogen stole my Obsy roof!

AstroJOE

By AstroJOE
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AstroJOE

AstroJOE

Posted
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Woke up nice and early this morning as have an important meeting in work that I needed to prepare for. Popped my head out the back just to make sure the Obsy was in tact after last nights high winds and to my horror half of the roof was in next doors garden! Even worse it had just been lashing down so everything inside has had a generous coating of the wet stuff. No idea what time this happened it was okay last night so I'm hoping it wasn't open all night. Managed to patch it up quickly this morning but had to leave for work so gonna finish early and go straight back home after the meeting to assess the damage properly. 

What a nightmare start to the week, make sure you've all got everything strapped down securely today as its forecast to get worse before it gets better I fear. 

James

PS how waterproof are the 1100D's?!? Lol

 

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Mav359

Mav359

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Its happened to me before, thankfully my roof was still on this morning.

My kit all got a right good soaking but with some patience and a hair dyer i'm thankful to say all my kit was fine. Just be 100% that everything is dry, give it another hour and once your happy give it another hour, i had to resist the temptaition to turn it on to check its alriight too soon.  Another thing i did as precaution was to plug them into my power tank rather then the mains.

I'm sure they will be ok, the kit seems to be much more durable then most people think.

Good luck

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Dave In Vermont

Dave In Vermont

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Rotten time! So sorry -

but global-warming is on the exponential-curve going upwards sharply. Expect and prepare for weather you once thought of as being for the Carribean - hurricane-force wind gusts, deluges, even a tornado shouldn't be ruled out. Last year a couple of people got killed in upstate New York from a tornado. That once was unthinkable. Not anymore.

Hope all dries out fine,

Dave

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Indeed, very sorry. I'm a great fan of the rather ugly courrugated steel panel because it can be bolted down harder than any kind of felt - though it sounds like you lost parts of the roof lock, stock and barrel.

Best of luck.

Olly

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JamesF

JamesF

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Not good news :(  I agree that you should give stuff much more time than you think to get properly dried out.  If water has got inside kit the dampness can take a long time to clear up, especially where there's no easy way for it to escape.

I have to admit that I went outside with some trepidation this morning, expecting to find a tree or two blown down or at least something to be somewhere it shouldn't thanks to the wind.  We appear to have been fortunate thus far though.  The only casualty looks to have been a bird feeder that was blown out of a tree.

James

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JemC

JemC

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That's not good news at all, hope everything turns out ok,
+1 for what other people have said, no matter what don't be tempted to turn anything on to check it until you are sure everything has fully dried out

James

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AstroJOE

AstroJOE

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Thank you everyone for your comments and sound advice. I'm on my way home now to assess the damage whilst it's still day light. I had the the power tank on charge over night and that was still running this morning so I'm fairly confident no water got into the electrics. The scope, dslr and qhy5 were not connected to the power but they were exposed and all pretty wet so those are my main concern. Fortunately I brought the lap top in after my last session and my eyepieces were covered over. That said there was about 1cm of rain water in the box i keep all my odd bits in so I don't know if any of that will be salvageable. 

My wife tells me the roof is sill on after more high winds today which is a bit of good news at least. I'll post later to confirm how I get on.

Once again thanks for the comments

James

 

 

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r3i

r3i

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Hi James,

Sorry to hear about your roof and hope your kit is going to be OK.

What method have you been using to secure your roof?  We get some strong winds up this way so when I built my observatory I went into paranoid mode and currently have 3 levels of securing the roof:

1: 4 Turnbuckles at each corner

2: A 'captive mechanism': 56b8c573c6100_5-04-CaptiveMechanism.thum

3: When going gets tough, ratchet straps:56b8c5abd6ee3_5-19-RatchetStraps.thumb.J

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AstroJOE

AstroJOE

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Well having removed pretty much everything from the Obsy and dried it all thoroughly my initial thoughts are I've been lucky, very lucky in fact. As far as I can tell the electrics are all working and by some incredible stroke of luck the camera, guide cam and telescope are okay too. The pattern of water on the inside walls suggest the rain was coming in at an angle from the south west as only the north and east inside walls were wet. The floor was soaking and everything on the shelves is drenched including my copies of TLAO and Making Every Photon Count but the rest of the stuff insider drawers or boxes has survived. Currently have the fan heater going flat out to dry the rest but fingers crossed it  should be okay. 

Its only a converted Keter plastic shed with a hinged roof but I've had it for 3 years and this is he first time I've ever had a problem despite high winds around this time of year most years. I don't want to risk something like this happening again though so I think it might be worth planning a more substantial replacement.... If I'm allowed that is ?

 

James

 

 

 

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