clear but dewy

[Adamski]

Hi all,

I was out last night and i reckon it was the clearest night so far for me but the dew was a real problem, not so much on primary but on eye pieces. I think a combination of the cold air and my body heat just kept clouding up my view, even my bino's were suffering. I did manage to see m13, m35 in gemini was lush and also either m108 or the owl nebula, i'm not sure on this one cos i looked on stellarium today and it shows m108 as a sausage shape end the owl nebula as round, what i saw was round but i was only on low mag.

cheers

Adamski

[JamesF]

Yes, I was out until about 2:30am and when I came in everything was running with dew

James

[RogerTheDodger]

I had my first problem with dew last night too, so I have just made myself a dew shield and a heater tape

[Adamski]

how do you make a dew shield and heater tape? i think that sounds like a good idea, tonight looks like its going to be good too, fingers crossed. Is the dew shield the cardboard extension that you add on to the open end of the scope? i would be very grateful of any ideas on this as i am new to this hobby.

cheers

Adamski

[RogerTheDodger]

For the dew shield I used one of those Lightweight Roll-Up Foam Camping Mats cut and glued into a tube, just slips over the end of the OTA and seems stiff enough not to occlude the view, although that can be remedied later with some stiff plastic hoops if it becomes a problem.

For the dew heater I'm using 10 x 560R resistors in parallel sandwiched between two strips of velcro. From a 12v supply it'll produce 2.5 watts. Since neither cost me anything to make as I had the bits, it is well worth the experiment

[Adamski]

thanx for that mate.

I'm gonna ransack the house and try and sort out the tube thingy but i'm not too savvy on electrical stuff so i need to research that part. I'm only a lowly welder and fabricator, I can build ships and bridges but i have never tried anything leccy.

cheers

Adamski

[RogerTheDodger]

This'll give you some idears on the dew heater Dew Heater

[Alkaid]

I was out on Sunday night, target Saturn but it was behind a huge bank of cloud. So whilst I waited I checked out M35 amongst others.

Saturn re-appeared and I went to grab the barlow and higher power eyepiece - only to discover I had left the lense box lid open and all was truly soaked.

Had to bin Saturn