Day 188 Friday 3rd October Lightning strike. Is my equipment damaged?
 Friday, October 3, 2014 at 3:40PM
Friday, October 3, 2014 at 3:40PM 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.
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