George Normandin wrote:

"Peter Hucker" wrote
...

I don't understand the obsession with temperature people have. Sure,
it's annoying having to scrape the car windscreen, but that's it.



Peter, et al:

As Rick pointed out really cold temps may have negative impacts on astro
gear. Although I've not had problems with the OGS 100 mount or my MI-250
mount, I'm reluctant to run someone else's mount at -30C. Also, it is often
difficult to get the PCs to boot after they've sat around in temps like that
for weeks. There's a guy who posts here sometimes who is an emergency room
MD and he has advised me on the dangers of exposure at -30C - like death in
30 to 60 minutes. I usually image on a remote mountain top surrounded by
wildlife (coyotes killed a horse about a mile away last year) and I'm always
concerned with falling down the stairs or just getting hit by the scope or
losing the car or building key in the snow or getting the observatory door
jammed closed. It's a long three mile walk down a dark mountain road......
and there's no cell phone service. Last night a friend and I decided that
with a wind-chill of -21 C we would not go up on the hill to observe Saturn
(although he really wanted to). I'll wait for warmer nights.

Last Saturday I did some solar observing with my PST at a -30C wind chill.
In my full gear I was warm enough but the wind keep blowing snow into my
eyes and they were watering so badly that I had a hard time seeing. After
about 20 minutes I gave up.

BTW, Not much snow where I live in south central NY, but to get to my
Adirondack camp I'd have to drive thru 6 foot deep snow (another foot
forecast for tonight). I'd have to observe from a hole!!

George N




I ran a bit of new warm weather grease as you can't mix the two on the
worms (both axes) and now I'm slewing at -35C at 50% speed without a
problem. Paramount recommends no more than that at these temps so
haven't even tried setting it faster. Before regreasing only slews were
a problem. It guided and tracked just fine. I could slew with the hand
control fine as well but the higher speed computer slew was too much and
it would shut down. I dab of fresh grease seems to have done the trick.

But I do have a problem with the FRONT of the CCD window frosting over.
Have to hit the camera for 5 minutes with a hair dryer and that clears
the frost. Then running the cooler without the fan keeps enough heat in
the camera to keep it frost free for the night. But all that is moot
with the horrid seeing I have right now. Hard focusing on a star that's
doing the Cha-Cha-Cha and Jitterbug at the same time.

No snow here either. We have had so little grass fires have been a
problem! Only had to blow the road 4 times this year and only once at
below zero (-18C) temp. Much better than last year when I was doing it
two and three times a week with drifts a meter high each time. But we
need the moisture. We were short over 10" of rain this summer and over
40" of snow short so far this winter. Not good. I wonder how Peter
would like a frozen septic system. With no snow cover that's been a big
problem up here. I put in a fully insulated system with 6" of foam
around the tank and pipes. The drain field has two feet of grasses over
it so is well insulated even without the snow. What snow we do have I
blow over the field from the drive and parking area. That put about a
foot of it on top of the grass. So we have no problem but many are in
deep .... in more ways than one.

Rick