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

[Brian Down Under]

Dear Mr Q,

Boys scanning neighbours homes? Try 100x on the nurses hostel at 3am!!! And yes, we were caught out. Young boys indeed! (No doubt my mates father wet himself laughing telling his mates at the local pub...after expressing his horror at our "unseemly behaviour.)

[Scooot]

Dear Mr Q,

Boys scanning neighbours homes? Try 100x on the nurses hostel at 3am!!! And yes, we were caught out. Young boys indeed! (No doubt my mates father wet himself laughing telling his mates at the local pub...after expressing his horror at our "unseemly behaviour.)

If you were over here you could have said you were looking at the 7 sisters -

[Naemeth]

I haven't yet used my Telrad correctly, I keep looking through it at the illuminated circles (i.e. with head directly above the Telrad) rather than from lower down on the OTA .

[Bart]

I haven't yet used my Telrad correctly, I keep looking through it at the illuminated circles (i.e. with head directly above the Telrad) rather than from lower down on the OTA .

Take it you haven't seen many DSOs lately Naemeth?

Barry

[Naemeth]

Take it you haven't seen many DSOs lately Naemeth?

Barry

No new ones , all the old ones I can remember where they are fairly easily have still been observed though .

[gbarnett]

I think it was the 1st time I used my 8" dob. I carried it outside in 2 pieces but put it together the wrong way round so it was front heavy. Luckily it nosedived into a bush in the back yard and I hadn't taken the lid off!

[LukeSkywatcher]

I once wheeled myself off of a roadside curb because i was too busy looking upwards to the sky. I wouldnt mind apart from the fact that i was sober. It was dark and no one was around to see it happen.

[Mr Q]

   When I first got my 10" newt with its EQ mount, I used to remove the 70 Lb counterweight when bringing it indoors. There is a safety washer and hefty screw in the end of the shaft to keep the counterweight from sliding off the shaft. Too much extra time removing the screw/washer each time I observed so just used the allen screw on the counterweight to keep it in place.

   Well, you can guess what happened. The allen screw let go and the counterweight slid off and fell to the ground, missing my toes by an inch   Yea, the counterweight and safety washer stays on the shaft  from then on - a pain lifting the mount but nothing compared to the idea of a broken toe(s)

[kirkster501]

I have never, with 100% certainty, seen Neptune or Uranus for that matter.

[Mr Q]

I have never, with 100% certainty, seen Neptune or Uranus for that matter.

   Neither have I so you are not alone. There's a nasty joke in respect to your post but I'm not going there

[StarryEyed]

My mate Mark asked me to bring my telescope around his house when we were fithteen. I thought we were going to look at Satuen. He justcwanted to look at Becky across the road. Thats not the admission. The admission is I was actually disappointed that he didnt want to look at Saturn. Thirty years later we are still mates and I am still like looking at Saturn and Becky is a distant memory for him.

[StarryEyed]

I dropped a 32mm televue plossl and a tear came to my eye.

[Mr Q]

I dropped a 32mm televue plossl and a tear came to my eye.

   A very good reason I ALWAYS set up on soft ground in the dark sky site (forest) or at home on my lawn - NEVER on my driveway or other hard surfaces! I too have dropped an EP or two but setting up this way, no damage was done

[rkc]

I just spent half an hour taking longer and longer exposures of what was supposed to be M82,  staring at the star patterns trying to make sense of them and work out whether I was pointing anywhere near the right place, before eventually realising that I was just WAY out of focus, and all I was looking at was hot pixels...

[kev]

An evening taking photos of a comet at various resolutions, that finally ended when cloud came in.

Only to discover.....  no film in the camera when I went to take it out afterwards.

<sob>

[ChrisLX200]

I considered myself to be an experienced astronomer and pretty used to setting my equipment up, but tonight I just spent over an hour trying to figure why my mount slewed to the wrong place and wouldn't track. I thought I'd corrupted my Gemini with a recent update, I did a factory reset and entered all the data again but that didn't help because... I had the DEC and RA motors plugged in the wrong way around.  

ChrisH

[Graham Darke]

I've been in such a rush to get observing a couple of times that I've polar aligned the mount at dusk using Kochab thinking it was Polaris. Does nothing for tracking or goto accuracy as it turns out...

[bish]

I spent 10 minutes trying to project the sun with my bins the wrong way round!

[m.tweedy]

Latest episode. Bought Astronomik LRGB filter set and lost them on way to car after owning them for 2 minutes. Mr Whoops strikes again.

     

[Mr Q]

Latest episode. Bought Astronomik LRGB filter set and lost them on way to car after owning them for 2 minutes. Mr Whoops strikes again.

     

  What an Ego punch that must have been

[m.tweedy]

  What an Ego punch that must have been

Hurt mostly in my wallet

[RCompassi]

One time, while observing with 4 other fellow amateur astronomers, in a semi-rural area, the police stormed us, to check what was going on,

because some neighbours where concerned with some dudes in the dark.

In the end, the four police officers joined to watch saturn!

(and we received a lot of apologies from the neighbours)

[trazor]

Just purchased  an AZ EQ6-GT mount, tried to set up alignment 3 times, no joy.

Only on my 4th attempt did I get the Date correct......American date format.......    

[Bornprouduk]

It didn't take me long, picked up my 102slt 2 days ago and the first night my son came round so I proudly assembled my new acquisition and connected my now 24 hour charged power supply and nothing no 2 minutes and you will be staring at the universe no light on the handset, convinced the power supply was not putting out voltage I went to the shed got out the 12 v tester and that showed ok

so I blamed the guy who sold it me and said it must be broken ....

My son then found the on off switch on the mount ......time to read the manual and I am now not infallible in the eyes of my son....