After driving 3 hours to a Bortle 2 site, I setup my gear and was planning on staying the whole night imaging targets. Since this was my first planned all-night imaging session, I never expected that my imaging would come to a halt an hour into my first object. As I was inspecting the subs, I noticed each one got dimmer and the details began to slowly disappear. It took me a minute to realize that dew had completely covered my objective. With no dew control knowledge, I was left with imaging stars with my basic 18-55mm lens. But at least on my way back, I knew exactly what I needed to do next in my quest for beautiful images.

My custom built 4-channel dew controller

After some research and soldering work, I made my own dew controller and strips. The dew controller had PWM dimmers that would in turn control the amount of heat delivered to the objective lenses, so that they could be a few degrees above the dew point. The strip from a nichrome wire was wrapped around the scope near the objective to warm it up by the current passing through it.

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