tricked (Mew Lake)

11:50 PM, Fri 14 Sep 2012. Damn it! Once at the beach, it was obvious the skies were not good at all. There must have been a large sucker hole over the Yurt after the movie. Very little of the sky was clear. It was discouraging. But I thought I'd wait it out. Perhaps, after midnight, it would clear up...

11:55 PM. I finished my set up, finally, after a bit of back and forth. Viewed M13. Not many customers on the beach...

Tonight I remembered to get out my weather station.

12:14 AM, Sat 15 Sep 2012. The clouds broke. I showed Albireo overhead.

12:15 AM. Ostap said hello.

12:22. I showed Almach. Asked Ostap his impressions of the colours. He thought them yellow and blue.

Checked the Oregon Scientific weather station. It showed the humidity was 86% and the temperature was 9.8°C. Humid. The dew was back...

Clouds came and went.

12:34. The humidity had risen to 89%. The air temp looked like it was stabilising at 9.7°. The OTA, table, boxes, etc. were wet. There was even moisture on the netbook keyboard. Leaking around the umbrella...

I checked the optics for water. Everything seemed clear. But the view through the Orion finder scope seemed poor. Pulled out the portable 12V hair dryer.

2:02. I blew the fuse on the battery 1 an instant after I started the hair dryer. Oh oh. I hadn't considered that. It would need a lot of amps and I probably had a low-rated fuse.

Then I realised I had not prepared for this scenario. I had spare glass tube fuses for the Kendrick controller and other CLA accessories. But my custom battery pack used the "standard" car blade fuses. I did not have spares. Never entered my mind. Duh! And even if I did, it would be a big deal to swap 'em. The fuse holder was inside the project box, requiring disassembly. Oh boy. A big job.

I could raid the car fuse panel...

I moved the motor control power over to battery 2. At least I had a second battery! With two outlets!

Not that it really mattered...

2:15. We were socked in. The OS showed 98% humidity. OK. Done.

§

Whenever I touched the 2" dew wrap, it never seemed warm. Is it broken? Again? Or rather, this one too? This is the newest!