Protecting your equipment.

[cheddar-man]

Lovely clear night last night so thought I'd have a go at photographing the Milky Way with my Sky Watcher Star Adventurer and Sony RX10Miv camera.

Two hours later and more than 120 images completely wasted thanks to the heavy dew! Everything was soaking! Wiped it all off and just let it dry naturally over night, luckily all seems to work!

I am making a dedicated heater for the front of my lens (can't afford the Taylor-made ones) but how do you protect your equipment without compromising the mount movement?

[JeremyS]

31 minutes ago, cheddar-man said:

Lovely clear night last night so thought I'd have a go at photographing the Milky Way with my Sky Watcher Star Adventurer and Sony RX10Miv camera.

Two hours later and more than 120 images completely wasted thanks to the heavy dew! Everything was soaking! Wiped it all off and just let it dry naturally over night, luckily all seems to work!

I am making a dedicated heater for the front of my lens (can't afford the Taylor-made ones) but how do you protect your equipment without compromising the mount movement?

Welcome to the British autumn! A lens heater will keep the dew away from that. For everything else, like the mount, it's designed to get wet from dew. Just make sure its dried off the next day...reading for the next night's dew drenching!

[cheddar-man]

Thanks JeremyS, that's what I was hoping for. 

Bits for the heater will be here tomorrow so hopefully it'll sort out the fogging issue.

I'm making it a 3watt heater for my 72mm lens so should be adequate. If it's not I'll just up-rate it😎