worst mistake in stargazing ??!!!!!!

[hemihaggis]

well apart from wasting much of my spare time doing anti cloud dances and looking up at the sky and cursing ,

my worst mistake in this hobby was selling my sw 127 mak .

what was yours ??

[Charon]

My biggest regret (so far) is not buying a decent telescope sooner.

[jonathan]

That sounds like an easy mistake to rectify.

My worst mistake (not much of a one really) was purchasing 50 x 70 bins, just can't use them! Now they are sitting in their box unused and unloved.

[Daniel-K]

selling my 8inch dob. god i miss that thing

[twotter]

Possibly deciding against observing when I've had the opportunity, but not the will....or maybe downloading Google SkyMaps onto my phone (deleted as it was so inaccurate).

Nothing earth shattering so far, thank goodness

[Stu]

A year or two ago, locking my car keys in the boot of my car, along with my scope and all my kit on probably the clearest, darkest night I have seen for a long time....

Plus joining the AA to try to break into it which cost me alot of money and they couldn't do it!

Won't be doing either of those things again :-(

Stu

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk

[Steve 1962]

Buying my first mount and scope without first asking the gang on SGL - big mistake!

[Macavity]

Being too "experimental" - You can definitely improve scopes, by "customising" them, but far better to simply sell them on intact! Worrying about mid-range eyepiece quality - To first approximation, price is a fair guide?

Most of all, back in 1973, ASSUMING I'd "never be rich enough", to become an astronomer. So many lost years - I had better health, more energy... But Hey! Start as early as possible - In a PRACTICAL way, if you can?

[pastiche]

The worst (most stupid) thing I did happened about 2 years ago.

My partner and I were going away for a weekend in Devon so the first thing I thought was 'Dark skies!'

So I went into our loft and brought down the original box for my telescope so that it would be protected for the journey. Then everything started to go wrong! ... I had to go to work so my partner said she would sort everything out and have it ready for when I get home.

When I returned in the evening everything was packed and by the front door ready for loading... cases, tripod, telescope box etc.

Three hours later we arrived at our destination and unloaded. The sky was clear and it was just getting dark and I thought 'this is it, peace and quiet with my telescope and a glass or two of wine'.

I set up the tripod and opened the telescope box ....

It was full of paperback books!!!!

My partner looked over my shoulder and asked me why I had not taken her books out of the box and brought my telescope instead!!

Apparently she thought the box was just right for storing her books in the loft.......

.... we are still together.

[jmfdiver]

Just been to Spain for 6 weeks and took my sw 200p, thinking great clear nights and not a lot of light pollution. I couldn't get aligned because I put the lat and long in synscan in decimal not minutes and degrees. Didn't discover that until I got home and read it on a thread here somewhere. You live and learn.

Jenny

[Cjg]

Giving away my 130 Heritage mini dob (it's gone to a good home) the day before I fell of the steplader - knees are too sore to manhandle my 10" dob to the car! Thankfully the skies have not been brilliant....

[faulksy]

mine wasnt to bad, but i bought a celestron ultima barlow thought it was a bit dirty inside (air gap) so striped it to clean but didnt take a note on which way round lenses went so put it back together wrong. tried swoping lens around a few times but couldnt get it right so sold it for around a fiver on the bay. wish i still had it

[onesmallstep]

Hi

Worst mistake in stargazing. That would be buying a GoTo scope as my first scope. I was too busy learning how to use it that I didn't actually get to do any skywatching.

[ash]

Selling my SW 200p on a HEQ5 goto really miss that

[ScubaMike]

I set up the tripod and opened the telescope box ....

It was full of paperback books!!!!

My partner looked over my shoulder and asked me why I had not taken her books out of the box and brought my telescope instead!!

Apparently she thought the box was just right for storing her books in the loft.......

.... we are still together.

Excuse me while I clean my screen !!

I bet it would have just been a whole bunch of "****" "*****" if you'd have posted about it at the time.

[bcfcciderhead]

Not putting the scope back 90degrees after doing a polar alignment, spent 2hrs swearing at the GOTO handset for thinking Vega was in my pond!

[pastiche]

Hi ScubaMike,

Personally, I think I took it very well as I remember!

[pastiche]

Not putting the scope back 90degrees after doing a polar alignment, spent 2hrs swearing at the GOTO handset for thinking Vega was in my pond!

That made me laugh :)

[Snaggerman]

I can think of a few!

Most bothersome of the lot was getting a nice 4" reflector off eBay for a song, getting it home and thinking "Hmm... all this needs is a bit of a clean...."

Can you guess?

Took out the big shiny mirror and got out the meths to get all that nasty dust and stuff off it....

"Hang on a minute, the coating appears to be on the surface....."

"Wait a sec, now it's got a scratch in it.... in fact, many scratches; quite large ones actually."

Swearwords followed.

Lesson learnt: I'm still making blunders though - I think it's all an essential part of the process! Needless to say my error rate has been lower since joining this forum, but it certainly is not zero

[todd8137]

getting in to the hobby as it depletes my bank balance ,gets my mrs cross,late nights,anf the cloud

[swamp thing]

My biggest mistake was not trying a Dob mount years ago.

I spent years faffing about with GEM's thinking I needed them, only to discover that you need em like a hole in the head.

Steve

[reddoss]

My worst mistake was not checking my old guide camera before going to SGL6, I spent two clear nights fiddling with it to find out that it was not up to the job and did not work. The up side was I got a lot of really good advice from MikeP who's a mod on this forum.

[jonathan]

Hi

Worst mistake in stargazing. That would be buying a GoTo scope as my first scope. I was too busy learning how to use it that I didn't actually get to do any skywatching.

Hmm, probably me too, I bought my Goto mostly for the OTA with the intention of buying the EQ6 SynTrek I now have on order (almost a year later, wish I had done it sooner).

However, if you don't try you don't learn!

[John]

My biggest mistake was buying my first Nagler eyepiece - it got me addicted to ultra-wide and sharp views

[laser_jock99]

Drove to Wales for a weekends astro imaging only to find I'd left my memory cards behind. I spent the nights enjoying the night sky with my binoculars - so not a total loss. Moral of the story make a checklist, check then check again.