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Mike I. Jones
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 07/02/06
Posts: 1571
Loc: Fort Worth TX
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Re: Observatories and Lightning....
07/01/09 09:30 AM Attachment (21 downloads)
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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
--------------------
56 mirrors, lenses, 16" f/6 Newt, 6" f/10 refractor, TOA-130S, Tinsley 5" f/15 Mak, 6" f/4 RFT, Coronado PST. Still to build: 24" f/10 Modified Dall-Kirkham, 10" f/26 Mak, 8" f/12 apo, spectrohelioscope, Herrig, Schupmann, and others.
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