Telescope for low temperatures

I have a friend who is wondering about what scopes function well at low temperatures. She lives in Alaska and is just getting into the hobby. The temps she deals with might reach -20 F. My initial recommendation to her was to get a refractor.

What say you?

John R.

Depends on where she stores the scope. She does probably not want a large scope, and certainly not a closed tube Mak or SCT.

The problem with a refractor is that you want a mount. A lot of GEMs (certainly cheap ones with Syntaglue) will become hard to use.

The first thing she probably wants is little electronics. A small Dob, stored close to ambient temperatures?

She'll definitely want a Crayford focuser rather than a rack and pinion focuser; probably not a dual speed one either (the Vernier reducer can also cause trouble).

Yeah, a nice refractor and a 25,000 BTU kerosene heater and lots of hot totties. Cheers, Darrell

I got a posting a month or two ago on a new Yahoo group on "Extreme Astonomy." I believe it was starting up to address the problems of our hobby at low temperatures.

Thanks for the ideas. I'll pass them along.

John