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The Supernova Search Telescope (SNST) at McDonald Observatory was hit by lightning years ago, and all the drive computers and motor control electronics were completely destroyed. Lightning rods extending above the building would have helped draw the leader stroke away from the building, but there were none installed. Surge protectors might have helped as well, but at the voltage and current transients present in lightning, it's impossible to know whether surge protection can be 100% effective. Better to draw the leader away from the building to begin with.

The Lightning Protection Institute at

http://www.lightning.org/

is an excellent resource for educating yourself on lightning protection and companies that sell equipment.

The National Lightning Safety Institute at

http://www.lightningsafety.com/

is also a great site for learning about lightning and protection from it.

Google on "lightning protection" and you will find several suppliers, such as

http://www.lightningrodparts.com/

and

http://www.harger.com/

As you can tell, I've looked into this myself. We live on a hillside NW of Fort Worth TX and get an uncomfortable number of lightning hits here (see attached photo from my back porch, taken with a wide angle lens, not a telephoto!)

I am going to put up lightning systems on both my house and observatory. I bought a Paramount and nice fast PC control computer for my various scopes to ride on, and am building my 16'x18' rolloff, so protecting my very costly electronics is "paramount" in my mind!

Mike

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It was told that lightning can effect your equipment even if it is a nearby ground strike.

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Nothing I know of will protect electronics from a direct lightning strike. For the power line surges caused by a strike nearby, consider powering the mount and associated gadgets from a UPS with a built-in isolation transformer. The isolated UPS essentially acts like a mini power station where all of the lines, including ground, are separated from the outside world. In my observatory I have a separate AC circuit from the UPS with outlets for the pier, the network router, and the PC.

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An 8' copper grounding rod should be pounded down into the ground right next to the building, and all the ground and neutral wiring should be connected directly to that local earth ground.

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.....I thought if I'm earth grounding on both ends it was OK to tie grounds and neutrals to the same bus bar...... Not meeting code means not getting reimbursed by insurance companies!
Thanks,
Mike

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Also to clarify my previous post, nothing was connected to an AC source. My mount, and camera were connected to my laptop and my laptop was connected to my LAN. My guess was that the LAN connection did the dirty deed and fried my gear. The laptop was not powered on at the time.

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OK - so install a separate earth ground copper rod at the observatory but only attach all the grounds, boxes, etc. to it and leave the neutrals on a separate non-grounded bus bar in the observatory - right? The neutrals would be tied to the ground bus bar at the main breaker box but not at the observatory?

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OK - so install a separate earth ground copper rod at the observatory but only attach all the grounds, boxes, etc. to it and leave the neutrals on a separate non-grounded bus bar in the observatory - right? The neutrals would be tied to the ground bus bar at the main breaker box but not at the observatory?
Mike

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OK - so install a separate earth ground copper rod at the observatory but only attach all the grounds, boxes, etc.

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I wouldn't, Mike.
There is still the possibility of differing ground potentials and the havoc that they can cause. ---- I believe that you would be better off wiring your observatory according to code

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