Doh! Or how to avoid being a plonker.

[Swoop1]

So, there I was last night, christening my new camera on Jupter then Luna when I thougt- Saturn! yes, grab some data.

I grabbed the slewing controls and got Saturn bang in the middle of the finder scope crosshairs. I saw that I had to tweak the camera controls so tweaked then wondered why the hell I wasn't seing Saturn on the screen. I spent 5-10 minutes messing with the controls and connections then looked up.

Ah- clouds......

I suppose it helps to look occasionally?

[tooth_dr]

2 minutes ago, Swoop1 said:

So, there I was last night, christening my new camera on Jupter then Luna when I thougt- Saturn! yes, grab some data.

I grabbed the slewing controls and got Saturn bang in the middle of the finder scope crosshairs. I saw that I had to tweak the camera controls so tweaked then wondered why the hell I wasn't seing Saturn on the screen. I spent 5-10 minutes messing with the controls and connections then looked up.

Ah- clouds......

I suppose it helps to look occasionally?

I’ve done the same. Kept cranking the gain up on the guidecam, wondering why I was having difficulty with finding stars, and then looked up and clouds! 

[Ibbo!]

Welcome to the club.

 

[Gfamily]

I had the opposite with Saturn once (a long time ago admittedly), where I was observing it with my 114mm Newt, and wondered why it was looking a little 'softer' than usual. 

Took my eye away from the EP and Saturn had gone - lost behind a bank of cloud - but still visible through the eyepiece. 

[Swoop1]

Another bit of evidence that I am a plonkoid- Doing 2 star alignment on the HEQ5 Pro and I stand there wondering why the telescope is pointing towards Australia when I selected a star well above the horizon. I now realise that the scope was mounted 180 degrees away from where the mount was expecting it to be........

[Ouroboros]

My list of plonkoidisms is infinite. One of my favourites is to connect all the cables, switch on the laptop, fire up the control software and .... it can't find the mount. Why can't it find the mount?  ......... Duh .... switch mount on! 

[Gfamily]

How about leaving the OTA safely just inside the front door on our way to a star party.

Fortunately, it rained all weekend.