From: hermit 
To: Rik Hill 
Cc: atm{at}shore.net
Reply-To: hermit 


Just when you were sure you had heard it all... ;-)

Ken

Quoting Rik Hill :

>
>
> We use mothballs in the dome track of the observatory to ward them and
> ladybugs off. During the recent wildfires here in Az, the fire crews
> and Steward Obs. firefighters managed to save it from the fires but
> when we went up to check the telescope and remove the corrector for
> anti-reflection coating (at a cost of $18,000!) we found that all the
> moths on the mountain had taken refuge in our telescope. There were
> literally thousands of them and they had all excreted on the
> corrector. It was covered with moth guano. When we spooked the moths
> by opening the dome they all took flight, flying into our faces and
> covering us with their excretions. Lovely. When we got the corrector
> downtown we had to spend several hours just washing the glass! It was
> pretty disgusting. The big problem is that the guano is very
> corrosive. When a moth walks across a mirror and leaves its trail the
> coating will quickly be eaten away. You don't want them anywhere near
> optics.
>
> When I worked on Kitt Peak (at the schmidt there) we had a zapper
> once. It ran for less than one night. Do you have any idea what
> a toasted Miller moth smells like? Also disgusting.
>
> "Trapping of moths is efficiently done by hand." if there are only
> a few of them. When there's thousands it's not feasable.
>
> The mothballs work well for us, are cheap and not offensive, certainly
> not as offensive as being wet on by hundreds or thousands of moths
> when they are spooked!
>
> -Rik
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wednesday 13 August 2003 18:25, peter cmaChen wrote:
> > Hi folks:
> >
> >                I came across this interesting article on the
> > problem of moths in telescopes and how the people there tried to
> > deal with it
> >
> > http://www.apo.nmsu.edu/Telescopes/SDSS/eng.papers/19970220_Moth/19
> >970220.ht ml
> >
> >    It got me wondering.  Surely many ATMs have come across the same
> > or similar problem in their telescopes and enclosures.  Does anyone
> > know of other environmentally friendly way - high tech, low tech,
> > or folk remedies - to keep insects away from people and scopes?
> >
> > Regards,
> > P.C. Chen
>
>
>


Hermit
Holed up in Youngstown, Ohio

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