Yesterday the unthinkable happened - full rain with open scopedome roof

[graemlourens]

Hi everybody.

I have to share a sad story. For around 4 years now i have been successfully remotely imaging with the scopedome 3M observatory. Great piece of equipment.
It always had one bug though that sometimes with high temperatures the shutter would not open (we thought temperature was the reason). The control hardware needed a restart and then it worked. Together with the ScopeDome guys though we never found the issue and i rather got to live with it. I wrote software that would detect this problem and do a mechanical reboot that then 100% solved the issues.

Yesterday while starting imaging a very unexpected cloud arrived and it immediately started pouring rain. The AAG System did its job and told the shutter to close. But it did not...

At the time i was 70km away from the observatory, and tried via remote access to do the usual fixes one learns after so many years of operating these kind of devices. Nothing worked. Very unusual!

I had to watch my observatory be rained into while i was driving 45 minutes to go and save what was saveable.
The irony - when i arrived at the observatory everything was soaking wet, but i had beautiful crispy clear sky again. Just seriously one fat cloud passed...

It took me a while to fix the issue, turns out that just rotating the observatory a few degrees did the trick, and the shutter was reacting again. I'll be investigating this further with the ScopeDome people.

Now to the reason i am turning to you guys & gals here:

Does anyone have experience with how to handle equipment that got a pretty decent amount of rain?
My approach was to leave the dehumidifier going the whole night and i didn't touch anything, didn't move anything or unplug. My gut feeling tells me to not move around the water more than it already has, and let evaporation do as little harm as possible. (Obviously i turned off all electronics, except the dehumidifier)

Any insight or hard lessons learnt from you would help me rescue whats left.

Tomorrow i am going to to the observatory again to see the process of drying, and then one by one turn on all electronics, to see what survived the unintentional cleaning session.

A very painful thing to endure!

Kind regards, Graem

Edited August 9, 2019 by graemlourens

[Mick J]

Ouch!     feel for you Graem, lets hope it all drys out OK, suspect it may take a while.

[Peter Drew]

I've had similar problems for different reasons. My experience has been that things don't usually turn out to be as bad as feared, I hope this will be true for you. Drying out completely before powering anything up again seems to be the best course of action. It's prolonged exposure to damp that eventually causes components to fail. I've just completed the construction of an observatory that is to be operated remotely and I am very mindful of such issues. Fortunately, mine isn't remote in terms of distance and action in the event of failure would be more immediate. Good luck.   🙂

[steppenwolf]

Sorry to hear about this incident - every remote operator's nightmare!

I haven't had this exact issue but I have had waterlogged electrical gear and have always managed to resolve the issue by bringing it home, draining out as much as possible and then placing it in a warm airing cupboard for a couple of days - unless you are extremely unlikely, modern electronics are very resilient, just be patient with the drying out procedure.

Oh, and get that technical glitch resolved once and for all, even if it means designing your own control system for the shutter - which is what I had to do some years ago until a new system for my dome was released which has so far proven to be bulletproof over several years of operation!!!

[Space Oddities]

I'm so sorry to hear that, it must be so frustrating...  

I can only recommend you to buy rice. It is amazing at absorbing humidity. Just put your electronic equipment inside a bag or a box full of rice, and let it dry there for a day or two. It might not save everything, but it's worth a try...

It worked once with my DSLR after taking it outside while it was snowing. It wasn't responding anymore, but 1 day in rice saved it and now it still works today  

Edited August 9, 2019 by Space Oddities

[Carbon Brush]

Gutted to hear of your problem.

As I don't know precisely what equipment was affected, and to what degree, I can only offer general advice.

First remove all electrical power. Yes the mains is obvious.

But you also need to remove any batteries. Even small (clock backup etc) batteries can start providing electrolytic corrosion.

Anything electrical or electronic - dismantle it. Thoroughly wash out using a mixture of isopropanol and water.
This will ensure you are left with a clean liquid that evaporates easily.
Then leave covers off and let gentle and the dehumidifier do their stuff.
Be patient (days if necessary) and don't worry about taking a hair dryer to electronics. It will survive 50C and more without issue.

Mechanical bits. Bearing on mounts, etc.
Wash out using isopropanol and water. Look at regreasing anything not sealed.

Scopes and other optics.
Wash the accessible surfaces as above. Dismantle on ly if there is evidence of water ingress. This is potentially more complex.

Good luck and keep us posted.

David.

 

[Gina]

Good luck with your drying out and also with fixing the problem.  I agree that domes should not suffer from this problem.

I've had mixed results from a swamping with rainwater.  I think perhaps twice I have had mounts and other gear, full of water after an unexpected torrential shower with the observatory ROR open and was able to salvage them by careful drying out.  I have also had lenses full of water which dried out successfully. 

What didn't survive was an astro camera in my all sky camera when a storm not only soaked it but tore it off its mounting and strewed bits across the observatory roof and over the back.  This was running at the time and was supposed to be waterproof but the storm broke the casing and mounting.  On opening up the camera the corrosion due to electrolytic action with the power on was clear to see and no amount of drying out and cleaning was able to retrieve it.  Dead as a dodo but a very important lesson learnt.  My usual over-engineering had failed!!

As you all have probably seen, I'm now working on motorising my roll-off-roof and using a rain detector to close it if a sudden shower should arrive when imaging or before I close the roof after overnight imaging.  Hermetically sealing the all sky camera is still a job in progress - it's not as easy as one would think.

Edited August 9, 2019 by Gina

[Anthonyexmouth]

no experience with astro stuff getting wet but being a roofer and working on boats ive had plenty of electrical gear soaked and survive. if its running and plugged in it can cause issues. ive dropped drills/grinders/skill saws in the sea before. none actually plugged in/running though. my goto is to rinse well with deionised water, luckily i keep a marine aquarium so have gallons of RO/DI water on hand but it can be easily bought at halford. all have survived after a rinse and extended drying time. 

[graemlourens]

Thank you all very much for your kind words & feedback!

I will tomorrow assess the situation and see what are the next steps. Will post you how hard this rainfall hit the equipment.

In the shock i forgot to make some pictures. Looks very strange seeing a telescope with a puddle of water infront of the lense  Hopefully something many of you never have to see.

Kind regards, Graem

[Gina]

I've seen it - not a pretty sight!

[maw lod qan]

Dont know what might fit, but I had camera and lens rained on over night while shooting widefield. You could see water in the lens.

Put it in a big plastic tub, put in a container of Damprid you'd put in a closet, then put the lid on the container. Let it set for a few days.

Works perfectly now.

[graemlourens]

A surprisingly happy update: After several days of careful drying of all components it seems that everything is working as it should!

I must have been extremely lucky with the direction the telescope and the shutter were pointing and the rain must have not gone straight into the devices but more 'over' them and the water did not penetrate deep into USB Hubs, Cameras etc.
I'll only really see if there are no hidden damages when i do the next real imaging. I was lucky that the past few days we have had extremely hot weather and the humidity in the observatory was around 40% even without a dehumidifier, i suspect this made a huge difference that the water evaporated very rapidly without me having to take everything apart. Looking into the lense and down to the filter wheel and camera i could not see any stains or residue of water.

Currently i'm in the process to analyse this mechanical shutter error once and for all with ScopeDome company as i have totally lost the trust in the dome. Hope we get that settled before the nebula season starts again!

Thank you for all your kind words & support.

Kind regards, Graem

[carastro]

What a great relief.  Hope you get your obsy roof sorted. 

Carole 

[steppenwolf]

9 hours ago, graemlourens said:

A surprisingly happy update: After several days of careful drying of all components it seems that everything is working as it should!

That's good news - let's hope that everything continues to work long-term.

9 hours ago, graemlourens said:

Currently i'm in the process to analyse this mechanical shutter error once and for all with ScopeDome company as i have totally lost the trust in the dome.

Yes, this really, REALLY needs to be addressed! I hope you find a suitable solution with ScopeDome.