At very low temperatures it is dry cold and there is no moisture on the lens.
At minus 34C the Kodak film broke hopelessly. I repeatedly cut new leaders but this didn't help as the film just broke into pieces.
Luckily I had some Konica negative film that was fine.
The camera case and strap were brittle and would just have broken up, so I left them in the bus station.
The Minolta SRT 303B and lenses were fine.
My friends' Minolta SR1, Canon FTB and Nikon camera and lenses were fine at minus 37C all night.
The users wore six layers of clothes.
However, at the eyepiece in the observatory at minus 20C to minus 25C my eye froze to the eyepiece.
Luckily it wasn't RAS screw thread and I just removed the eyepiece and went to the warm room under the stairs until it warmed up.
I did however, get my foot stuck in a gap under the snow when viewing comet Halley after walking perhaps 500 yards over the sea to a darker island. It was minus 20C.
I didn't panic and unzipped my boot, pulled my foot out of the boot and then prised the boot out of the hole. Luckily I didn't break my ankle or have a serious injury.
I would not have lasted the night stuck there.
On reflection, I was pretty stupid to do these things alone.
On one night I forgot to close the stair hatch in the observatory, but managed to grab the dome rail as I fell and pull myself back.
There was a gorgeous white large hare when I left the observatory one night. It was whiter than the snow and magnificent.
It stayed still for a while then left. About five feet from me.
I slipped on ice on granite and dropped the Ross 10x70 monocular and the prism was partly smashed. One third of the view was missing but I continued using it regularly.
Arthur Frank let me have it from his collection in Glasgow.
In 1970 such things were not being made new.
All in all it's amazing I have reached old age. I have done many stupid things.
Regards,
B.