Day 188 Friday 3rd October Lightning strike. Is my equipment damaged?
This is the first day when it appears that we will not be having storms or lightning. On Monday during one of the many lightning storms I was having dinner at about 8pm and there was an extremely loud crack that made me jump about a foot out of my chair - it sounded as though the lightning had struck within the room. All the power in the house went out.
Today - with the possibility of a clear night I tried to set up the equipment ready to observe, The telescope switched on fine - responding to the hand controller as usual and slewing to home with 2 button presses as normal.
Back at the computer in the house however it was a different matter - when I plugged in the USB cable to the port - I did not get the usual bing-bong. I tried my wireless mouse - no bing-bong. None of the ports were working. I googled the problem as usual finding a range of solutions none of which worked. Then the laptop told me that it was low on power and switched itself off - even though it was plugged in. I soon realised that the power supply had failed. I tested the powered USB cable to the telescope on my other laptop - and saw that it was not working. A strange coincidence of three failures at the same time. Maybe not - I think the lightning "strike" caused a surge which blew the laptop power supply and the 30m powered cable connected to its own electronics and to the laptop ports causing them to blow. I think the telescope , camera and focuser which all connect to that same powered cable through a hub are OK but will not know until I set the sotfware and drivers up on my other laptop - tomorrow's job. I think somebody up there is not in favour of me discovering a supernova!! Maybe I am missing a simpler solution but have not spotted it yet.