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And the Idiot of the Year Award goes to.....

Chris Cavanagh

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Chris Cavanagh

Chris Cavanagh

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Tonight was my First Light with the Skywatcher 250px. In Borgholm here we had a clear sky with plenty of visible stars. So I took it out and focused on Jupiter. I was wondering why I could only see a white disk and the spider legs holding my secondary mirror through the eyepiece, but I persevered in the hopes of detail appearing on this disk. After a while I realised nothing would change, so I headed home, dejected, and put everything away. It was only then that I realised I hadn't pulled the truss tubes the whole way out (halfway actually). Or at least I think so (it would explain seeing the secondary mirror/spider legs in the eyepiece.

Moral of the story - make sure your truss tube dobsonian is FULLY EXTENDED before stargazing.

PS - Still managed to see Jupiter's Galilean moons through the finderscope alone, so it wasn't all that bad.

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Chris Cavanagh

Chris Cavanagh

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It's made worse by the effort I put in to ensure it would be a good night (preparing warm clothing, assembling/disassembling the thing, locking the partners cat's in the bedroom (to avoid them running out the door), stealing her favourite chair to use while she slept etc.

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Gazabone

Gazabone

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Made me smile, thanks. I tried a couple nights in a row to find M81 and kept wondering why my scope was pointing in the wrong direction until I realised I'd written down the wrong coordinates...... I have no idea what I was actually "finding"!

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colin2007

colin2007

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Several years ago I had been out observing and it was the early hours of the morning when I decided I would have a break and make a cup of tea.

The house was in darkness and and I was well dark adapted and so could easily find myself around the home. I entered the kitchen and without thinking opened the fridge door for the milk...!

I won`t say what I said to myself!!

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Akiainavas

Akiainavas

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First time I took my 250px away from my garden I forgot to pack the tightening bolts which attach the OTA to the base. Slightly loose is the word...

I remember going quite far away with my scope only to find that one of my latitude bolts slipped from my hand and fell on the floor... back home. So yeah, happy stargazing that was haha. Why did I even unscrew them ? Will definitely never do this again - live and learn ;)

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Stu

Stu

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You have my sympathies, but you may have to try harder [emoji6]

I travelled an hour to a dark site, got all setup with my Mak on Goto mount, only right at the end did I realise I had forgotten a vital power cable. I spent a frustrating time with a rather awkward push to mount! Great views of saturn though.

A favourite of mine used to be leaving the clear cap on the inside barrel of a 13mm ethos, alway used to think it was broken for a few scary seconds each time!

My favourite was being under a wonderful dark sky in Dorset whilst camping for a week. I had all my kit with me, and had just started to get a few bits out of the boot, when I carefully placed my keys inside and locked them in the car!! I could have cried! Spent a frustrating few hours just looking at the Milky Way shining brightly down at me. Cost me a fortune to join the RAC to get into my car [emoji20]

You are definitely not alone!

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RobertI

RobertI

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My latest, in a long list of idiotic mistakes, was getting to the observing site with equipment, carefully prepared observing plans & star charts and realising I had forgotten my reading glasses and could not read a thing! :angry: At least I was still able to observe some old favourites from memory.

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Chris Cavanagh

Chris Cavanagh

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Some cracker stories here I must say - glad I'm not alone in my woes. One thing I've taken from this is to extend the thing and lock it in place for the foreseeable future - means I (hopefully) won't have any other mishaps like that.

At any rate I think I have to wait until Wednesday before I get another clear shot at stargazing (cloudy tonight), so we'll see how it goes then!

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Astro Imp

Astro Imp

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Sorry Chris but I had to have a quick chuckle at your expense. Why do we all have to laugh at others misfortune?

Don't worry we have all made loads of silly mistakes, just go through some of the similar threads and see how many of us have left end caps on our scopes. It would seem until you have managed this three or four times you're not a proper observer  :eek:

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nicoscy

nicoscy

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Travelling to a dark site with my dob and a ton of gear, only to discover I left the rocker box back home.

It was a binocular observing session for me that evening and a whole lot of curse words...

Note that the wife offered to drive an hour to bring it to me and then go home. I refused to put her through that, but kudos to the wife for being so supportive.

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Davey-T

Davey-T

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Having made trips and always forgotten some little thing I resolved to have a complete portable rig in cases ready to go, so feeling pleased with myself packed it all in the camper and off to dark sky and the only thing that wasn't in a case because of the weight was the WEIGHTS  :grin:

Dave

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SacRiker

SacRiker

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At least you didn't miss a clear night at a star party because you locked your car keys in the boot :-o

LOL!  By the way, I just looked at some of your shots on Flickr...wow....some great stuff there.  How much did you have to pay for the hydrogen-alpha filter?

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Luke

Luke

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LOL!  By the way, I just looked at some of your shots on Flickr...wow....some great stuff there.  How much did you have to pay for the hydrogen-alpha filter?

Thanks! I use a Daystar Quark Chromosphere, which was £795. I think it sells for about $995 in the USA.

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