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Skywatch Outbound!” Number 62 (New Series) 70S

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Skywatch Outbound!” Number 62 (New Series) 70S Amateur Astronomy WITH AN ATTITUDE from Chaos Manor South! Rod Mollise’s May - June 2002 Volume 11, Issue 3 “A Newsletter for the Truly Skywatch Outbound!” Number 62 (New Series) 70s. There was this new scope <[email protected]> being advertised in Sky and Bustin’ Telescope. One that had hit amateur astronomy like a thunderbolt, the Inside this Issue: Schmidt Cassegrain in the form of the original Orange Tube C8. The Dew with new, mass-produced Celestron was the telescope that a lot of us had been waiting for. It combined Bustin’ Dew with the Dew elegant, useful features into a Buster! the Dew package that virtually made it a 1 portable observatory. Oh! how happy I was when I got my new Review of Xephem! Celestron out into the field for the 2 Buster! first time on a clear July evening. A “premium” dew heater I was happy for a while, anyway. 3 My Back Pages! controller… After a few hours I noticed that stars Rod Mollise weren’t as sharp as they had been. And the brighter ones were developing foggy little haloes. Was What do you do about dew? Do something wrong with my new you worry about dew? baby? Yep. A look at the corrector showed it to be a dripping mess. You do if you live in a location where Thus ended my first observing run high humidity makes nature’s little, with the Orange Tube. It was a nice damp gift a prime enemy of the demonstration of what happens working observer. Since I live on the when you point a big lens at the Gulf of Mexico coast, dew is an heat-sucking sky in a humid omnipresent fact of my observing environment: dew “falls” (or “forms,” life. Many a promising Summer really ). Since it appeared that I was observing session has been ruined back in the Southeastern United over the years by fogged, dripping, States to stay, I knew I had to do dew-SLIMEY optics! But with the something to make my Summer release of the Dew Buster Controller (and Fall, Spring and sometimes I’ve gone nuclear in my war against Winter) evenings less miserable midnight optics baths! dew-wise. But what? What’s a Dew Skywatch Buster? How does 1207 Selma Street it bust dew? Mobile, AL 36604 U.S.A. Let’s not get ahead of the story. Let me turn back the clock to those stone-age days of amateur astronomy, the early . First Blood. this was not the ideal solution, didn’t just plug these into a 12volt either. Sure, a zapper would get rid battery as you had the kitchen table Step one was one of those thingies of the dew, but in damp conditions it masterpieces or the earliest like I saw on the ends of my becomes real old, real soon to have commercial dew heaters, you buddies’ Unitron refractors: to keep zapping the corrector every plugged them into a controller. This dewshields. A dew shield is a simple couple of minutes. allowed you to vary the power to the thing that works on a simple heaters, keeping your optics dry and principle. It’s nothing more than an Perfect? your battery alive for a whole extension of the tube in front of the observing run! And man did the corrector (or objective). It works by We amateurs are not known to let a Kendrick System work! I still shielding the lens from the normal, problem go unsolved forever when it remember my first use of the full 180 degree view of warmth- comes to our beloved equipment— Kendricks on my C8. At a horribly sucking space that it would maybe a decade or two, but no dewy star party, I, the only person otherwise be looking at. For people more! Late astronomy entrepreneur with this new-fangled “System,” had in some parts of the country, a Roger Tuthill turned things up a the only undewed scope left on the dewshield is all that’s needed. For notch by introducting his “No-Dew field by midnight. areas with low humidity and light Heated Dew-Caps.” These things dew, you can probably get away worked, more or less, but were a Nothin’ is perfect. with just a shield. Even if you live in little clunky. And expensive--at a dew-heavy area, a dewshield is a about a hundred bucks a pop (C8 So the Kendrick System is all you good investment since it serves as a size) in big 1980s dollars. But a need? Can’t be improved upon? light shield and tends to keep better idea was already coming off That’s what I thought ‘til last Fall. I inquisitive fingers off your corrector amateur kitchen tables. Eventually, was at our local star party, the Deep plate. somebody cracked the code as South Regional Star Gaze, one regards dew. Make yourself a humid PM when Louisiana amateur Things heat up. heating element to go around the Ron Keating trotted over holding corrector plate. Make it from a string what I at first thought was a For observing locations where dew of resistors Work things out so that Kendrick controller. Nope, said Ron, is heavy and dewshields alone just a leetle heat is applied, just this was a Dew Buster. A eventually fail to keep optics dry enough to keep the corrector dry. “replacement” or “alternative” (usually just at the moment when Glue ‘em around the end of the controller for use with the Kendrick you’re finally about to track down the tube. Or maybe tape ‘em in place. heating elements. Ron told me he Horsehead in your C8), there’s just really had something, he thought, one way to prevent dew: keep the No doubt there were a couple of and with the help of some corrector (or objective, or eyepiece, these “dew heaters” made associates, was planning on putting or whatever) warmer than the commercially before Jim Kendrick the controller (and maybe some of ambient temperature. It doesn’t came along, but he was the man his own heating strips) into have to be much warmer—just who really brought the idea to production. “Why?” said Skeptical warmer. Various devices came fruition. Canadian artist Kendrick Old Rod. “You can’t improve on the along to do just that. First were the was a new scope owner who Kendrick System, can you?” Ron blow dryers. I mean it! Just a blow couldn’t believe that these silly, said the thought he could, and had, dryer you swiped from Sis or SILLY amateur astronomers hadn’t and proceeded to tell me the how girlfriend (or your own, maybe-- come up with a better way to keep and why. these were the 70s, the days of Big dew off a C8. Hair for everybody). This really Goliath Kendrick has a weak worked. So long as you did it right. If nobody else would, Jim would. By spot? You couldn’t pump 1500 watts onto the early 90s he was selling the the scope—do that and you’d find “Kendrick Dew Remover System.” When people first see the knob on that it took quite some time for your And what a system it was! He the Kendrick controller, they just optics to reacclimatize. You had to produced heating elements that naturally assume it varies the use gentle heat, and you had to looked good and worked well, with temperature of the heating have a source of AC or a big the active elements being built into elements. It must be a thermostat, battery/inverter combo. A better nice cloth strips that were fastened right? Wrong. As is clearly stated in choice for astronomy was the little around your corrector/objective or the Kendrick literature, the system 12volt blow dryers, which were sold other optics with Velcro. From the doesn’t know anything about the as window defrosters in truck stops beginning, he made heaters for temperature. The farther you or, quickly, as “dew zappers” by everything from a .965” eyepiece to advance the control, the longer enterprising scope merchants. But a C14. And, most importantly, you power is applied to the heating 2 . Skywatch elements. On “low,” they get power several late-nighters. I did mention 40% of the time. Crank it up to “full” to Ron that if he’d send me a A glance at the (simple, but clear) and current flows constantly. This production model once he got going, instruction manual reveals that the 6 works OK, but it is not the perfect I’d let the folks know what I thought AUX jacks are not temperature situation. Most people, seeing dew of it. He replied in the affirmative controlled. These are intended for beginning to form on the tube of the and that was that and there matters your “accessory” heaters: scope, have a tendency to crank up stood for a couple of months. One eyepieces, finder objectives, the Kendrick all the way until the March afternoon, however, a little Telrads, whatever. The heaters heater elements feel warm to used for these items are the touch. This is bad for relatively small and of low several reasons. First, the wattage. They don’t draw a lot heaters don’t have to be hot to of battery power, so merely work, they just have to keep cycling them off and on like the lens above ambient. the Kendrick controller does its Turning them up may introduce heaters does not adversely seeing-destroying air currents affect battery life. Also, getting or may even cause the a finder objective or eyepiece corrector to deform slightly.
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