Telescopes and rain ARGH!

[explorer7377]

Help! Was unfortunate enough to make a newbie mistake this weekend. Was out in the field and a sudden storm blew up over the top of us. Barely had time to grab the lap tops and hastily cover the OTA and mount then run to the cabin to avoid the lightning strikes. As you can guess, the wind blew the tarp off and my Celestron 8" SCT OTA, AVX mount, star shooter auto guider and 60mm scope were all soaked. Hindsight 50 - 50, I immediately purchased a cloak. Should be here this week...A little late I know. Needless to say, i dried off everything I could and packed up. When I got home I blew any remaining water off the OTA with compressed air, turned upside down (towards corrector) and drained a little bit of water out and then placed back in its plastic transport tub with small containers of DampRid. The AVX mount I blew out the connector ports as well as the SSAG and both were placed in plastic tubs with DampRid as well. Tops closed on the tubs to prevent the DamRid from drawing moisture out of the general air. This is my continued plan for several days then take everything back out and set up in the house to further air dry with fans blowing on the AVX mount and SSAG. Obviously I do not plan on powering anything up for a while till I am absolutely sure there is no existence of moisture.

I will obviously have to clean the corrector plate on the OTA as it is spotted up with rain drops and I will also wipe down the tripod legs with silicone to prevent rust. I don't know if I should spray contact cleaner into the ports on the AVX mount and SSAG. So my question to the masses! Is there anything else I can do? 

[DRT]

I think you have done the sensible things and I am sure your kit will recover. I wouldn't spray anything into the ports unless your think they are dirty. Make sure everything is dry before they see power again, and just be careful when cleaning that corrector plate

[explorer7377]

Thanks BD. I've been checking out Starizona videos on cleaning SCT's. 

[Zakalwe]

A cheap de-humidifer might be worth purchasing. Bung the kit into a room and run the dehumidifer for a few days.

[ChrisLX200]

Too late for you I think but for anyone else - make sure to remove any small batteries that may be your control box or mount ASAP, let the electronics thoroughly dry before replacing with a new one.

ChrisH

[spaceboy]

Just make sure if you do take the corrector off that you make a note of the orientation as from what I gather they can go back on any which way but only one way is the optically corrected way.

Just a case of letting everything dry out now. I was aware of one member recommending a spray you put over the electronics that adds a protective / waterproof film over the board for people keeping mounts in obsy's so you could always see if you can find something similar for once everything has dried out. The thread was some time ago so not sure what the stuff was called sorry.

[Peter Drew]

That sounds really bad luck but I would be confident that all will be ok in the end. Late in the day now but I wouldn't have recommended using compressed air to shift water on the grounds that it could force it into areas that it would not have done naturally. Good luck for a happy outcome. 

[Timebandit]

Hello. I feel really sorry for you and what a day you had. Really bad luck the tarp came off and the water came in. And the time and effort you are now having to go through to sort out to try and save your set up.

The main thing is let everything dry out. Don't be tempted to give it a quick go until you are 100% sure everything is bone dry or could damage electrics if your tempted to power up early.

As with compressed air, I would say this is a no no for anyone else thinking of this in the future. I had some experience around compressed air many years ago. And using a compressed air gun to blow off delicate surface could do more damage than good (depending on the bar pressure setting)  As the air coming out of the air gun jet can be going at tremendously fast speed and can literally shoot grit, dust in the atmosphere into your scope optics. Don't forget they use compressed air in sand blast guns to strip rust ect off steel. Therefore I would not recommend compressed air around optics unless you know what you are doing, or you have one of those very low power air canister types designed for blowing  off key boards, optics.

All the best and I hope your scope days out and everything is ok☺