Simon Tranter PhotoBlog

Six Moon Designs Lunar Duo

As promised this post is about the Six Moon Designs tarptent called the Lunar Duo.

I found it quite difficult to mind much information about this tent before I bought it other than the info on Six Moon Designs (SMD) website and a couple of forum threads. I can’t really provide much of a review on the tent as I have still only used it once. So this will mainly be bits of info and some pictures to help anyone decide if the Lunar Duo (LD) is right for their needs.

If you haven’t already I suggest you head over to the Six Moon Designs website to get an idea about this interesting two person ultralight backpacking tent.

Six Moon Designs Lunar Duo tent, as the sun sets over Dinger Tor, Dartmoor.

The LD is a tarp/tent hybrid, part of a new bread of Ultralight shelters designed with the best features of a tarp and a traditional tent and sits somewhere in between the weight. It is basically a single skin tarp with a floor and bug netting sown in.

It comes with just two short poles which are pre-curved and slip into pockets at the top of the doors creating the rounded ridgeline. Also needed are two hiking poles in order to give the tent its height. The ‘floating’ canopy allows you to adjust the height of the canopy according to the conditions. Taller for more space between the canopy and ground for better ventilation, and lower down add security in inclement weather.

The LD has two porches and doors which can be rolled up and secured using a toggle allowing more ventilation and great views!

Setting up the LD is very straight forward.

• Partially unzip the bug net and insert the curved spacer poles on either side, and zip it back up
• Set the hiking poles to desired height. Insert the first pole into the gromet in the roof and stand the handle on the ground.
• Peg the guyline for this first side, making sure the hiking pole is vertical
• Repeat the last two steps for the other side
• Adjust all the pegs for a nice tight pitch

That’s it. There is also extra guy points either end to add stability.

Inside there is a lot of room for such a lightweight 2 person tent, due to the clever design and the vertical mesh walls. The floor plan shows the internal area 229cm x 137cm, but it does feel bigger due to the height in the centre. Vertical mesh at each end also means you don’t come into contact with the canopy while inside. It stuffs down nice and small and weighs just over 1.2kg, not including hiking poles and pegs.

Inside the Lunar Duo

The stitching and overall quality seems very good, and having set up the LD in the garden to seam seal it I was impressed with how tough it seemed even with the light materials used. With regards to sealing the tent using a silicone sealer, the LD hardly needs it to be honest. There are no seams over the internal area, just along where the bug netting is sown in. I sealed them as a matter of course, but have read that many people don’t even bother.

There are vents at the top of each door, and tensioning straps at the four corner pegging points. Also the netting pockets by the doors I find very useful for bits and pieces.

The floor is joined to the four corners by some elastic which helps to keep it central. But while camping on Dartmoor I found the floor slipped down hill slightly and caused the canopy to sag slightly. This was in part due to the floor slipping over the Tyvek ground sheet, and was not a large problem. The large L-shaped doors are easy to use and give plenty of room to get in and out.

One of the main problems with single skin shelters is condensation.  This can occur of the inside of the tent and, if bad enough, can drip. It can be a major problem if you use a down filled sleeping bag, as I do. Down is pretty useless if it gets wet and will not keep you warm.

But with a bit of planning and good ventilation condensation shouldn’t occur, or be too bad to deal with. The night we spent on Dartmoor was, unfortunately, windless and very humid. So there was un-avoidable condensation build up, even with both porches open all night. However, it did not drip unless you touched the canopy, so didn’t cause any kit to get wet.

I will need to spend more nights camping to see wether the condensation will be a big problem, or just a little now and then.

Here are a few more pictures to give you an idea. I hope this blog is useful in helping someone decide if the Lunar Duo fits their needs. I am please with the tent so far, and will give an update in the future after more use.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 8th, 2010 at 18:22. It is filed under Backpacking Gear, Gear and tagged with Backpacking, dartmoor, Lunar Duo, photos, Simon Tranter Photography, Six Moon Designs, Tent. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.