High Winds

Hi all

With last night being partially clear I took out the binos for some quick observing, the sky in the cloud breaks was magnificently clear. However the winds were extremely high, predicted gusts up to 100 kph and higher.

If the sky were clear I would still have been reluctant to put up the scope for fear of it being blown over by one of these gusts.

Am I being overly cautious, my scope is either the 80mm or 127mm refractor on a CG-5, by not putting up the scope?

Anyone ever have an unfortunate experience in high winds?

It'll take quite a bit to blow it over, but more to the point it will be next to impossible to keep it still enough to see anything - don't forget all the movement of the 'scope is magnified many times over at the eyepiece.

More annoying would be all your eyepieces, filters etc. blowing away all over the place

It would be a horrible and thoroughly unrewarding experience :lol:

Agreed. On nights like the ones we're having at the moment low power binoculars (7x to 12x) are yer only man.

Yep, the binos will do fine for just a while, the winds last night were very scary here in Cavan, the noise at 10pm was quite loud.

Keith...

Large Dobs could get whipped around a bit, as the tube acts almost like a kite! Can be frustrating.