Environmental Control

I intend on either running a small electric fan or getting one of those small room portable air conditioner/de-humidifiers. I'm thinking a small fan would keep air moving on cool humid nights to reduce or eliminate dew issues. The AC/De-humidifier would be used for limited environmental control inside the observatory when its sealed up during the day. Any thoughts on these accessories and their intended use?

Also, what should my real concern be regarding lightening strikes/grounding of my system? I live in N. VA and I get some pretty strong late afternoon T-storms with lightening through here in the summer months. Potential exists for a strike.

Unplug everything from your mount and other electronics. Some of my fellow observatory members have been hit by indirect strikes and caused damage to the electronics in their mount controllers. I leave no dangling wires from my set-up. Paul

Louis Busby said:

I intend on either running a small electric fan or getting one of those small room portable air conditioner/de-humidifiers. I'm thinking a small fan would keep air moving on cool humid nights to reduce or eliminate dew issues. The AC/De-humidifier would be used for limited environmental control inside the observatory when its sealed up during the day. Any thoughts on these accessories and their intended use?

Also, what should my real concern be regarding lightening strikes/grounding of my system? I live in N. VA and I get some pretty strong late afternoon T-storms with lightening through here in the summer months. Potential exists for a strike.

Hi Louis,
The humidity can be partly controlled by a small AC unit. Find one with a thermostat that can be set to the expected observing temp. If you seal up your observatory without it, expect mildew. Otherwise a fan is a lower cost method.

As to lightning... Judging by the photos you're at a lower elevation than the house and nearby trees. The most likely scenario is a near miss, which can ruin lots of equipment. Drive a ground rod and give everything a decent ground. This would include metal conduit, pull boxes, outlet boxes, the metal parts of the building and of course the ground plug of each outlet. Feed all electronics from a protected power supply, and remember, a dangling wire is an antenna waiting to receive.

This time of year Phoenix gets rain; usually in the form of a storm. My solar setup is as shielded as possible and the building's corrugated skin is grounded.

Thanks,
Steve
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