Garage storage = cooled down?

Hi. I have an 8" dob and an 8" SCT. I store both in my detached unheated garage. It is not particularly well sealed or insulated as it is an old garage, so in other words, I believe that it is almost the same temperature in there as it would be outside. Well cooler during the day of course since it's all shade inside the garage.

So when people talk about these LONG cooling times for SCTs like 2 hours, or 30 minutes to one hour for a Newt. Does that even apply if you store them like I do? Or can I just roll em out and start observing?

It really does not matter where you store the thing. What matters is the temperature differential between where you store it and where you use it.

By the way, if your garage is anything like mine, it is a lot hotter than outside.

By the way. If you live in a fairly himid place (where the nighttime temperature does not drop much compared to the day) your scope will not suffer from this cooling problem as much as we have in the southern California desert, where on some nights there is a temperature differential of as much as thirty degrees between daytime and nighttime temperatures. It is possible in our desert that the glass never reaches ambient temperature--because the ambient temperature just keeps falling with no humidity to hold the heat.

In short--if your temperature inside the garage is the same as it is outside--and your nighttime temperature is the same as your daytime temperature, then there is no change for the telescope to adjust to.

Alex

hi,

I store my SCT in my garage and in the summer it needs cooling down. I bring it out 1 hr ahead of time, take the visual back off and turn it corrector plate down to let the hot air rise out of the tube.


clear skies,

Larry Citro