Heart in mouth moments!

[wulfrunian]

Just setting up last night and uncapped the 10mm Ethos. As I held the bottom part, the 1.25" extension came away in my hand. It had somehow become unscrewed from the main body of the eyepiece.

I just had visions of the fact that it could have happened just after I'd put it in the focuser - potentially a shattered secondary, primary and Ethos! Broke out into a sweat!

[Charon]

I would of cried !!, it was bad enough when my cat pushed my Baader Zoom off my table but an Ethos phew!.

[AlBoning]

Reminds of a night not long after I got my 8" eq mounted newt. There was a club member present that seemed to be so adept at collimation he could just look down the tube and tell how good the collimation was. So I asked him to come over and make an assessment of my collimation. After a few moments he asked me for an eyepiece. Still in the car I went to get them. When I came back I started to put a 1.25" Plossl into the focuser only to find, by feel too dark to see, that he had removed the eyepiece adapter. I had just barely averted dropping an eyepiece onto the primary mirror. Lesson learned - no matter how experienced do not touch another's scope or let another touch yours.

[Tinker1947]

Reminds me of long ago, driving a locomotive, the wheels pickup (slippy unused rail) and the buffer stop loomed in front, then disappeared from view, crash and bang and a bit of jumping about there's 76 tonnes of loco with no rails underneath, a very hearth thumping experience...along with the other 17 derailments of various type....as for astro my Telrad i thought was in the slots wasn't but a soft'ish landing on my foot saved any damage..