DvandenH wrote:
Hey all,
Ruined my telescope mount electronics.
When i gotoot my scope to M81 the cooling leads (with water) hit the
mount and disconnected from my camera.
The water got into the mount and electronics en shortened out the
electronics..
So for all you guys that uses cooling water to cool camera pls beware..

But fortunatly a local retailer offered me a RCX400 - 10" at a very good
price.
Per the 1 of July i am the proude owner of a 10"RCX400!
Till than no more pictures from me guys.
I will keep looking at your pictures and dream away..

Thx,

Ouch! That's a nasty surprise. At least you'll be back in business in
a few months. Though July won't offer you much in the way of dark skies
I would think. It's bad enough here and you are farther north.

Fortunately, I can reach -20C nearly any night without water so never
use it. Much of the winter that is the ambient temp here! I get good
results even at -15C which happens one or two nights a year. The
cooling in the STL-11K easily does 45C at 80% power. Since most summer
nights are cooler than +20C, cooling hasn't been a problem in getting
enough. Sometimes I get too much and frost the front of the optical
window! At below -35C ambient the camera makes some nasty blooms. I
retarded a setting but see it still acts up some in 3x3 binning mode.
By matching the darks to the temperature and exposure time rather than
scaling them I see very little difference from -5C on down. The camera
does "age" rapidly so every couple weeks I redo the darks at the
standard exposure and temperatures I expect to use in the next couple
weeks. I suppose if I lived in Florida I'd have to consider water.

Rick

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