Stupidest thing you have done to date

[Shibby]

Well, I have just 1-upped myself by falling asleep last night and allowing the scope to go 2 hours past the meridian! I figure it spent about an hour with the OTA hard up against the tripod

[breezy]

@ pixelsaurus mate its grim, dont ever try it

[The_PSY3NTIST]

Hmmm I've done that as well. More than one time I'm afraid.

This rings a bell to me too

[Matt Scunthorpe]

Messing with the screw on the focuser that I knew nothing about

I did that with mine too and the focuser has never been the same since.

[ggreene1]

I forgot, another favourite of mine is leaving the clear cap on the 1.25" end of my 13mm ethos. I have the 2" adaptor on it and always panic when everything looks blurry until it dawns on me......again!

Stu

That was one of the first stupid things (probably not the last unfortunately) I did. I panicked thinking there was something wrong with the $135.00 EP I had just received. Glad to find out that that was all it was.

[paul mc c]

Two stick out.........No 1,forgot to tighten the secondary on my 10'' and yes.. six foot drop onto the primary,it took me a good 15 minutes to get the courage to look at the damage

No 2,went on holiday with the scope to a really dark site only to realise that i didnt take the eyepieces

[Andrew INT]

I drove out to a dark site in the middle of nowehere. I had a load of kit in one hand, and closed the car door with my other. Only problem was that I closed the door onto my thumb. I had to drop all the kit in order to open the door again. It felt like my thumb was on fire, but I didn't look at it until all the imaging was done.

A few days later the thumb nail fell off, but at least I got one nice photo...

[cyborg421]

Left my Hyperion on my Dob base. It was the first expensive eyepiece I had bought. Forgot about it in the dark. While packing away, "clink" aa eyepiece falls off, took chunk out of glass.

I now have some Naglers, I am much more careful now!

Simon

[Hanuman]

Travelled 40 miles to a dark site and forgot................................the telescope

Sort of thing i'd do - I've turned up to a gig before now with my mandolin case only to open it and discover I'd left the mandolin at home.

[boabsta]

Stupidest thing Ive done is agree to have a look through a freinds telescope. Has cost me a fortune since!

[Auntystatic]

On Saturday it was the first clear dark night since early May, I was itching to get my first picture of Andromeda, so......

First time using a new qhy5v as finder guider - check

First real go of guiding with eqmod and phd - check

canon 5D on 600mm f4 lens in focus - check

Ivo's new version of APT just for my 5D running - check

Quick 30 second snap to check for correct star field alignment - check

2 hour 300 second exposure run started - check

Why is there no sign of Andromeda on any of my many images? camera set for an aperture of F29 aghhhhhhhh!

[sam mayo]

before i found this site i went to look at a scope to buy,the gentlemen said he knew nothing about scopes so i thought id use my knowledge to wow and get it cheaper after getting owner to lug it out side back door and lift it up high enough to see over the fence(was hard)to check the optics(only if there was a sign saying these optics a broke would i have actually known)for ages all i could see was brown every were so i told him it was broke and thanked him and said good bye as i was leaving i noticed the carpets were al brown,didnt have the balls to tell him i had it mounted backwards!!

tried testing my new web cam on my net book but when al i could see was me very clearly took a while to realise it was using the inbuilt netbook cam oopps

[Chris Hopson]

Going through the 3 star alightment twice on a friends CPC using the finder scope and not the eyepiece, I know, it's stupid then realising the lens cap is still on the scope!

What can I say.

[Chris Hopson]

Spending my first night with my newly bought telrad trying to collimate with it on back wards.

[Gregohks]

Thinking astonomy was going to be a cheap hobby.

+1

[Si W]

I dont make mistakes , just have a lot of accidents .

[Demonperformer]

Well, there are a lot of contenders, but I think the No 1 spot has to go to the combination of not buying a lock for my laptop which I used for imaging and disappearing inside to the bathroom for a minute while leaving the setup in the front garden at the edge of my property next to the pavement. And yes, the obvious happened!

[ollypenrice]

Im up to 3 times now.

You've a long way to go, Paul. I have an enoouuurrmous lead over you on that one and I added to it last night - twice!! You can't get the staff, I kid you not.

Olly

[Freff]

Pushing my observatory roof the wrong way and getting flustered with it not opening..[removed word].

[laser_jock99]

Pushing my observatory roof the wrong way and getting flustered with it not opening..[removed word].

I tried closing the obsy roof with scope not quite parked properly. No matter how hard I pushed the roof would not close. When I checked inside I was horrified to find my Equniox 120 was the obstacle!

[Freff]

I tried closing the obsy roof with scope not quite parked properly. No matter how hard I pushed the roof would not close. When I checked inside I was horrified to find my Equniox 120 was the obstacle!

Tell me about it. I now have a big yellow warning on the push beam, Park the Scope Before Pushing.

[russ.will]

Being overtaken by the motorbike I was riding...

Russell

[russ.will]

Forgetting that 4wd gives you more grip in snow, only under acceleration.

Russell

[Jove]

Spent ages trying to get the rings of Saturn to come to focus. Was looking at Arcturus.

[Ganymede12]

Spent ages trying to get the rings of Saturn to come to focus. Was looking at Arcturus.

When I first started looking for Saturn I was looking at Arcturus. As it turned out, Saturn was hiding behind my house!