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Stupidest thing you have done to date

Sirius Bizness

By Sirius Bizness
in The Astro Lounge

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jeremy1

jeremy1

Posted
Posted

Listening to my wife about where I can and where I cant keep my telescope. "Keep it in the conservatory" she says, "behind the chair in the corner, if you put it there then it won't get damaged". The problem with her suggestion was the fact that nobody could see it standing on end behind the chair. So the first person to fall back into the chair made it slide backwards on the tiled floor straight into my scope hitting it against the wall and snapping off my Red Dot finder. Cheers wifey thats why I should never listen to your suggestions. :)

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Matt Scunthorpe

Matt Scunthorpe

Posted
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I was marking up the weight shaft on the eq5 so i could place them easily in the dark to be roughly level. Totally forget they werent locked on and the stopper wasnt screwed into the bottom. spun the scope around and gravity took over. Now 1 weight locking nut has the support the weight of both as the other nut is broken.

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coxy322

coxy322

Posted
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When packing up I lifted the scope, which was on it's side, by the ends - forgetting the dew sheild was on. Quickly the shield loosened and the whole OTA dropped onto the concrete luckily secondary mirror side down (since I still had grip of the primary mirror end!).

Another time I carried the OTA through the house but the focus tube was out too far. Smacked the door frame very hard indeed.

My poor OTA, only a year old. Still works fantastically though, only bruised.

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Rihard

Rihard

Posted
Posted

I just gave my self a heart attack when thinking I was saving time and not locking the latches down on my EP case I came back to it and pulled it up only to launch all my EPs across the kitchen floor! The shock! Some bruises now on my favourite EPs but after tentatively trying each one out they seem fine.

What is the stupidest thing you have done whist observing?

When I was about 10 or less I used a 114" reflector (see signature) on the Sun without any filter as a "funny laser beam" to pierce plastic and other materials. Even worse, I even attempted to position my eyes in front of it, not sure how I still have a head on my shoulders and why my sight is still good, it must have been extreme luck. This obviously slightly ruined the optics (a hint of plastic smoke came out from the OTA, that now seems eternally out of collimation when I try to use it) and more then slightly I ruined a nice 9mm 0.965 eyepiece.

The second (and probably worse) thing I did was trying to put my brand new TAL 2X barlow lens in a non-existing pocket of my jacket during one of my first sessions with the 200P. The barlow magically fell standing vertical and - obviously - in the gravel. 1/4 of the lens got chopped and that was not evident while observing saturn and the moon. I only realised the lens was damaged when back home.

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Luke

Luke

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It's a toss up between recently:

- increasing the exposure length on my DSLR as the target wasn't showing up, only to realise I had the cap on the end of the scope having taken some darks while clouds passed over

- wondering why the guide camera wasn't working, when I realised I hadn't plugged its cable into the mount

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Luke

Luke

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I'm wondering when I am going to run out of new stupidities.

Frantically messing about with the trackpad wondering why the cursor was not playing game, only to realise it was an insect. I am thinking perhaps I should stick to visual, fewer points of failure?

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carastro

carastro

Posted
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1. Wondering why I couldn't find a guide star, spent a while adjusting the guide scope screws to try to find one - duh, it wasn't in focus and to make matters worse I was demonstarting to an on-looker how it was all done!!!!

2. I must remove the Bahtinov mask BEFORE I start imaging, I must remove the Bahtinov mask BEFORE I start imaging, I must remove the Bahtinov mask BEFORE I start imaging, I must remove the Bahtinov mask BEFORE I start imaging.... especially when it's a 20 minute sub!!!!

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paul schofield

paul schofield

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I often put a hair net over the end of my scope during cooling to stop dusty moths or bugs entering the tube and you guessed it. Started observing thinking ' I'm sure its had long enough cool down time err maybe its dew err, then noticed the net still on needless to say I felt like brains of Britain. I was quite excited though as the skies were wonderfully clear.

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pixelsaurus

pixelsaurus

Posted
Posted

Before heading off to Western Australia in June '74 to shoot the the total solar eclipse, I practised my exposures using a 200mm Soligor and a Practika Nova B. Oops. Needless to say, I did actually manage to burn a hole through the rubberised cloth focal plane shutter. Easy peasy. Fortunately a black felt tip pen and a piece of sticking plaster fabric saved the day. The shutter pretty much functioned flawlessly for several years until a friend and I, in a drucken stupor, decided to "look under the hood" to see how SLR cameras work. But that is another story.

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