Time To Confess...Come On, You Can Do It!

[Mr Q]

   OK, dig down real deep and see if you can spit out some of your most secret and embarrassing moments.

   Well....in my 50+ years of observing, I have never observed M81 or M82   Its not that I haven't tried...its just that I have this problem with star hoping more than a few FOVs to an object. And what's worse, I even tried bins with no success.

   I keep trying and one of these nights...well, I'll let you know when I do.

   Its not that I don't have good star hopping skills - Ive' found things so faint and hard to locate that most seasoned observers won't try for...but these two guys? Some night I WILL bag them...I think

[AlexB67]

Buying my first DOB and not removing  the cap, I wondered why I could not see anything. The only excuse I can give, it was quite dark at the time, it still took me a good 3 or more minutes though to work out what was going on

It was a big D'oh moment !

[BruceAlmighty]

This is very recent....

I set up my new nexstar 6se and went out, on 2 separate nights. On both occasions I failed to get it to align properly.

It was only last weekend when I realised I had the latitude and longitude entered the wrong way around

Celestron Nexstar 6se

http://pixelpal.blogspot.com/2014/01/my-new-telescope-how-i-chose-my-nexstar.html

[crashtestdummy]

Driving a 2 1/2 hour round trip to a dark site and realising you have left your truss poles at home

[scarp15]

Driving a 2 1/2 hour round trip to a dark site and realising you have left your truss poles at home

Wow, that's where some Ray Mears bushcraft skills might have come in handy.

[Ptarmigan]

   Well....in my 50+ years of observing, I have never observed M81 or M82   Its not that I haven't tried..

Well, tis funny that you should say that -

In 50+ years of visual astro mainly with binos I _never_even_tried_  for M81/82, thort it was out of range of 10x50

Till the other evening,

getting prepared for when the SN gets a bit brighter,

I thort I should familiarise myself with star hops in the region and, well, I will have to check next clear night, but I think,

I got 'em both ! Knock me over with a feather !!

It was a rare clear night between rain and hail showers, NELM better than mag5, when I brought my sketches indoors and compared with Stellarium the two fuzzy patches (that usully turn out to be unresolved averted vision of close faint pairs of stars) were about where they were supposed to be !!

So how daft is that, never previously trying ! ?

[stevetynant]

Non astro drinking story coming up..................

When I was younger stayed over my mates house in Chepstow. Went into town with Andy and a few others then came back to the family home in the night fully loaded after the day out on the lash. Calmly fell asleep in front of the TV. Next thing I know I'm being pulled out of my mates grandmothers bed completely naked by his mother and shown the spare bedroom.

Breakfast the next morning was the most embarrassing moment of my life.

       

[Astro Imp]

Alright I'll come clean.

    i) Like most of us I've left the lens cap on the OTA (more than once)

   ii) Rushed out on a rare clear night and connected both the slow mo controls to the dec. axis.

  iii) Did a rough Polar align (just for visual) and started observing to find the OTA very wobbly on the mount. I'd neglected to re-tighten the mount.

I think that's enough, I'm sure there have been others.

[Teslar]

I swapped my QHY8L from my Newtonian to my ED80 to image M31 a few hours worth of worthless data later I realised I'd left the coma corrector on the camera. I had images that looked like soup bowls when checked in ccdinspector

[hobbes22]

Buying my first DOB and not removing  the cap, I wondered why I could not see anything. The only excuse I can give, it was quite dark at the time, it still took me a good 3 or more minutes though to work out what was going on

It was a big D'oh moment !

Dont worry, you're not alone!!

[RikM]

I am probably not alone in this, but I have shot well over an hour's worth of subs on the Pleiades with the Bhatinov mask still in place

[m.tweedy]

Driving a 2 1/2 hour round trip to a dark site and realising you have left your truss poles at home

last Saturday driving 2 hour round trip to derwent and leaving the bolts that secure the NEQ6 to the pier in the house.

Gave me the opportunity to look through a society members new OO 14. That was NICE.

[Ant]

I fell off a wall while looking for Mercury, shame next door where watching me at the time.

Didn't know till they asked me if I was ok the following day lol.

Felt a bit of a prat to be honest!

[Dave_D]

a couple of days ago i spent a good four hours scratching my head wondering why the RA felt tight on 180 degrees of its rotation and slack on the other 180 degrees after i stripped and regreased the axis (after reading horror stories of people who had used the light lithium grease i'd used about a month ago) only to realise i hadn't attached the counterweight bar to balance the DEC puck... turned out i was doing 180 degrees against gravity on the tight part and 180 degrees with gravity on the other... it was smooth all the way after i attached the counterweight bar

and fusing the low pass filter to the bottom of a plastic tray with acetone when i was modding my camera. took a looooooong time to clean that one up...

[Scooot]

I fell off a wall while looking for Mercury, shame next door where watching me at the time.

Didn't know till they asked me if I was ok the following day lol.

Felt a bit of a prat to be honest!

Why did you think it was on there?

[catman161]

I've only been doing this for a couple of years but my most embarrassing moment was not being able to use a planisphere! Once someone showed me what I was doing wrong (holding it the wrong way around) I got the hang of it and then found stellarium and passed the planisphere on!

[moffer]

Having a good old go at collimating the primary of my new 200p using the locking screws. 

[Stephen]

Once ... I got caught ...

Doing visual astronomy :o :o

[avtaram]

When I first looked through the WO Multi Reticule Finder mounted on my WO ZS 71 all I could see was a little red blur that flitted about all over the place. This is faulty I thought better email FLO and let them know.

Came inside and started to compose an email when suddenly it dawned on me, I had it mounted the wrong way round.

Avtar

[Scooot]

Once ... I got caught ...

Doing visual astronomy :o :o

Were you captured?

[goodricke1]

Trying to remove a lens from a camera using brute force. Never knew there was a lens release button

[bingevader]

Non astro drinking story coming up..................

When I was younger stayed over my mates house in Chepstow. Went into town with Andy and a few others then came back to the family home in the night fully loaded after the day out on the lash. Calmly fell asleep in front of the TV. Next thing I know I'm being pulled out of my mates grandmothers bed completely naked by his mother and shown the spare bedroom.

Breakfast the next morning was the most embarrassing moment of my life.

       

And the winner is......!

At least of the non-astro event! Unless you count gazing through beer glasses? 

Cheers

[brantuk]

I got to our dark site once with my CPC - diligently set it all up - then went to plug the handset in it wouldn't go in the socket. I'd brought a SW handset with a Celestron mount - in front of all my new stargazing buddies - embarrassing or what.... lol

[JamesF]

When I was younger stayed over my mates house in Chepstow. Went into town with Andy and a few others then came back to the family home in the night fully loaded after the day out on the lash. Calmly fell asleep in front of the TV. Next thing I know I'm being pulled out of my mates grandmothers bed completely naked by his mother and shown the spare bedroom.

I would have been tempted to leave you there

James

[stevetynant]

It was a tug of war between the gran and the mother apparently lol<br />

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