observing on windy nights

After all the stars will still be there tomorrow

So will the clouds...

Bang on Dave - I've actually purchased two of those wind turbines they stuck off the East coast. Calm conditions? They're for wusses.

80kph winds and -20 deg c - bring it on!

Windy nights justify owning a short ED or Apo, e.g. a 66mm. They have much less windage than bigger scopes, which means they vibrate less.

Thanks for the replies guys, however didnt see them until just now as as soon as Keith said wind + obsering = not so good, i was in bed about 30 seconds!

John, the dream is to own a nice apo, however cant justify the cost just yet, well, i can, but my girlfriend just doesnt see the logic. damn illogical girlfriend!!!

dave grennan wrote: Get that scope out SLACKER!!! You are a disgrace to the uniform SkyWatcher Guihen! Real astronomers use giant fans to make it windy on calm nights!!!

I really wana see your back garden Dave, a fantastic Observatiory with a pillar that goes to almost the centre of the earth, and a wall of giant fans to make observing more "interesting!"!!! doesnt sound eco friendly bud damn does it sound cool!! :lol:

If its windy, what I used to do is to go into the wind shade of the house.
With the observatory, its not a problem any more.

We have all discovered that the number of clear nights with strong winds can abandon any observing attempts due to vibration of the instrument in particular for imaging, where you need long exposures. In order to address this issue I use a mobile wind barrier. This is a large horticultural mesh barrier held by a pole either side. Depending on the orientation of the wind you can move it around. This significantly reduces the wind to a near still position.

I originally did experiments by building a rudimentary wind tunnel to measure and design the optimum barrier that would reduce wind significantly. This resulted building a solid sheeted wind barrier at a 30 degree angle away from the wind.

The idea was that the wind reflects off the angled barrier which in turn deflects the upper laminar flow away. This has the advantage that you only need about a two third height of the telescope tube vertical orientation so that you have a surprisingly wider clear sky to operate over.

Eamonn A

I never considered wind as a factor until my 1st serious session about 3 weeks ago. Everything i looked at was dancing around. What i do now on windy nights is set up my scope inside and view through the window at the back of my house that points east. I see as much as i would outside and i stay warm in the process.