Cheer me up share your Astro fails I'll start

[Yearofthegoat]

One of my more recent ones is trying to find Polaris, for a rough alignment, with the cap still on the top of the polar scope 

Andy.

Got my HEQ5 last January, really like it, got the legs on, pointed it north, levelled it, attached the mount, dialled in the latitude, Attached the power cable, fired it up, got down on my knees to do a polar ailgment. No Polaris, no nothing.

Now my eyesight isn't the best so rebooted, went into the Synscan option to play with the backlight to the polarscope reticule. Still nothing. Then realised I'd left the cap on the polar scope. Dolt.

Rebooted. Back on my knees, moved the mount about a bit. Still nothing.

Realised I hadn't switched the power back on. Switched power on. Still nothing. Decided to shine a torch down the polar scope. Saw a shiny bright thing in the polar scope hole. Yep, counterweight bar.

[carastro]

Yup Year of the Goat, know the feeling I have done a couple of polar alignment with same experience in the past.    

Carole 

[Yearofthegoat]

Yes, felt a proper twit.

And my knees! Up down, up down in the damp cold. I put down a roll mat now, but have started doing polar alignment with the Synscan too (what a lazy so and so). Seems to work fine, certainly for visual.

[Horwig]

I suppose I should admit to a bad reputation with USB connectors.

First foulup

I was working to make a cooled dslr from my canon eos 450d. so had removed all the case and non essential bits, leaving basically just the motherboard/sensor and lens mounting.

I was testing it like that, naked on the back of the scope, when I brushed against the mini usb protruding out the side, and ripped the socket off the pcb, one very dead Canon, after all the work.

Second foulup

I'd given up on the work involved in doing another dslr, and spent real money on an SX camera and filter wheel. They were mounted on my Borg 100ED, which was in a Tak clamshell.

Now for those that know the Borg 100ED, you know that the Dew shield is the same diameter as the OTA, and can probably guess where this is going.

Essentially, I was setting up to image close to the zenith, and was sighting up the scope, when it slipped out the clamshell, and into my lap, and took the usb socket off the pcb in the filter wheel.

I've learnt the hard way that right angle USB connectors are worth their weight in gold, and that ALL cables should be loomed neatly and secured close to the connectors.

We live and learn.

Huw

[Marki]

Once in a hurry to pack up due to rain, I undid the bolt/screw thing thats holds the mount to the tripod head. The mount promptly tipped over and crashed to the ground. I'd forgotten to take the counter weights and extention bar off first! Luckily landed on grave/earth rather than concrete, and fortunately suffered no damage other than a few scratches (and a big dent in my ego ).

[Interstellarshaw88]

As a newbie I'm obviously very new to it all and last night I decided after having my new scope and mount for a week the clouds wasn't going to be a issue and decided I'm going to set it up indoors and have a look how it all fits together and make sure everything works before I take it for a proper run.

I've owned other telescopes before in the past but never owned a goto mount (heq5), I read most of the instuctions but thought I was cleaver enough to finish the last part on my self,

I got all my scope correctly balanced up and was very impressed with my self come to moving it with the controller and no luck at all completely confused as why the Gears was moving but the actual mount wasn't, after half hour I still couldn't figure why the motors was moving and the scope or mount was not as you all can probably relate to I started getting really angry with it all and gave up with it for a hour.

I decided to go back and have a look at it and obviously before I left it I locked the clutches up but when I went back I forgot to unlock the clutches and it all worked fine.....

Stupid me didn't realise I needed to have the clutches locked for the motors to work and unlocked for manual....

Felt very very stupid haha

[Yearofthegoat]

Stupid me didn't realise I needed to have the clutches locked for the motors to work and unlocked for manual....

Been there done that! Gotta love the HEQ5 though

[Interstellarshaw88]

Haha atleast I'm not the only one then....

[Matthew Neale]

First time I ever used a telescope (completely not knowing what I'm doing). I mounted it backwards and wondered why I couldn't see anything. In fairness I didn't research anything before I used it and I was out in the dark countryside with my ex partner :-)

I've come on leaps and bounds since then.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

[nicoscy]

Setting up newly acquired Celestron CPC800 at the building roof (had to carry it up a couple of flights of stairs).

Enjoying lovely views of Jupiter.

Ending in the ER a few hours later for shots of muscle relaxant and painkiller as the mount and telescope at 20 kilos and tripod at 10 kilos disagreed with my back.

Rear end was not happy with the injections. Back was extremely grateful though 

[bishbosh]

My fail last night was not removing the dog muck off the lawn before venturing out!

[Interstellarshaw88]

I'm loving this thread and reading some of the comments some are so hard to believe but me being a daft clumsy person that I am I can see how it's all Happened lol

Darren

[CharmingThunder]

I'd have to say the worst night I've had would have been going to a lake district dark site with some mates (we were all big into astronomy) and I had two scopes at the time, a visual skywatcher 200p (I think, it was a while ago) dobsonian and a second one on an EQ5 tracking mount I'd been using for imaging. after lugging both scopes from the car and setting them up I went back to go pick up the filters and eyepeices, as well as my camera. needless to say it did not go as planned, I was halfway back up the hill (a rather steep slope) when I tripped and the box everything was in broke. everything went careening back down the hill and ended up in some tall grass. At the time I had recently lost my job and was in no position to replace nearly £500 worth of lenses, filters and my laptop, not to mention my camera. so I was forced to spend most of the first night searching in the dark for tiny bits of metal and plastic. Thankfully the camera and laptop revealed themselves to me quickly, the camera was fine aside for some small cosmetic damage. The laptop had not fared as well and was missing most of the outside casing and a number of keys no longer worked, but it functioned. everything else had been in the plastic sleves they arrived in, so they were scratch free. Overall pretty harmless, but I still pack all my smaller equipment in a bag before I take it anywhere to avoid bing in this situation again.

[Edinburger]

I'm still new to this so I've not had the chance to make too many errors. Still managed one last week though!

I stayed up all night as the forecast was for clear skies. My targets were the planets Jupiter, Mars and Venus. So at roughly 0230 I checked the sky was clear, it was. I went outside and took the scope out the car and set it up in the street. Jupiter was staring down at me, bright and sharp, so I aligned to scope to Jupiter and went to lock it up and overtightened the Alt adjuster and stripped the thread. Arggg. Session ruined and a wasted night staying up watching junk television!

Fixed now though, tapped it out to M6 and fitted M6 bolt.

[Stub Mandrel]

Really silly fail  - since getting a 450D i have been waiting for a timer remote off the 'bay.

Just discovered it's still in my 'shopping basket' with a 99p IR remote waiting for me to check out :-(

It may arrive before clear skies...