First clear night in ages so out come the scope and then this happens.

[Trevor Matthews]

The 60th Birthday scope has seen no action this winter due to the terrible weather and poor skies.

But tonight looked great.
I get the scope setup around 4-30PM to allow everything to cool and hopefully minimise the dew.
Get the GPS running and start the alignment.
The moon is up so I use that.
Then Jupiter and job done.

I go out a few hours later, about 15 minutes ago, to see snow failing, the scope is wet and covered in snow.

I don't bloody believe it.

Then I look up to see perfect clear skies......

The penny drops..... The bloody new neighbour has lit a fire in the garden and the wind is taking the ashes and fumes directly from his fire to the centre of our house and the scope is covered in dew and fire ash.

I knew dew heaters are generally required but I had no idea it would be this bad without one.

As for the neighbour, a quick word over the fence about texting me if he is having a fire and an explanation of why I only have a fire when the wind is blowing away from us all out over the fields.

Hopefully he got the message.

The optical tube is now drying out in the lounge and I hope the ash hasn't damaged any front glass coatings.

Dew heaters and dew shield are the next purchase then.......

 

 

regards

Trevor

[Clarkey]

If it is any consolation I got all my gear out (2 complete AP rigs), got them polar a aligned and went inside to wait for full astro darkness and get the kids to bed. Half an hour later I went outside and it really was snowing. Layer of snow over everything! Soooo... I rushed about and got everything inside whilst grumbling under my breath.

Then everything cleared for a cloud free night. Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!!!

[Trevor Matthews]

Oh no! 😧

 

Mine was a good lesson learnt.

Never leave the scope unattended pointed up.......

It dried and most of the ash came off but there are some tiny marks left on the front glass that won't come off with gentle rubbing.

[Doasqa]

This is not uncommon. Get all set up and everything goes south. I don’t have anyone too near me but a neighbor across the street has a motion light that lights up my area a little. I’m getting off point, the other day, like you, all things looked great at 4:30. So I not only set up my binocular-telescope on the raised deck, I set up my SW100 telescope on the lower uncovered deck. I got all my eyepieces out for both devices and was ready to go. I went in for dinner and went out to check the conditions. I was shocked to see black clouds rolling in from the west. That’s not uncommon here and they usually pass over. Not this time, they were followed by grey clouds that blanketed the entire sky. I had to rush to tear down everything in fear of rain. This happens quite a bit, perfectly blue skies ,then an hour later complete overcast. So my friend, you are not alone.