Dropped the Scope

[adamsp123]

My 10" SNT hit the deck tonight, had it on a EQ6 but turns out the dovetail on the beast does not fit an EQ6 puck properly.

Anyway in goto slewing, the scope parted company with the mount and landed on the concrete back yard.

Bang! bottom of scope hits first, Bang! falls over lands on finder scope, I stand stunned waiting for the, "sound of breaking glass" and meade zoom EP flies out. more:eek:

Well no glass broken, slight dent in base ring, slight dent in tube where the finder mount bracket is located, finder OK!!! scope looks as it might need recollimating although until I have done some testing I won't know if I have killed it.

Maybe I'm lucky because it was close to vertical so base was fairly close to the ground.

Now if it had been my 120ED refractor there would have been serious tears and pulling out of hair.

However if the scope is dead

So set up the refractor and then the mist starts rising and seeing awful so packed up might have a drink in a minute.

Had a great view of the ISS though.

Pete

[Starjumper]

Hi Pete,

Hope not too much damage done !!!!!!

John

[GazOC]

I hope everything works out OK Pete. I was going to come on here an have a moan about the seeing tonight but your problem hs put that in context....

[Tim]

Yikes, hope its ok.

[AndyH]

Oh my.................that could have been a LOT worse by the sounds of it !!

Fingers crossed that recollimation does the trick.

Cheers,

Andy.

[scarr1]

worst nightmare man. fingers crossed everythigs ok

[barkis]

Hells Teeth, what a stomach churner that must have been.

Let's all hope the damage is superficial Pete.

Not an Ideal cure for constipation, but It's bound to work.

Fingers crossed mate.

Ron.

[lulu57]

OMG!

And here was me getting (a bit) upset about my neighbour smudging up my Ethos!

I hope another clear night comes soon so that you can check that it's OK.

I am sending you some virtual sympathy and a cyber glass of brandy to calm your nerves.

[vlebo]

I wake up in cold sweats having nightmares about that happening.

If there is damage you can always check out your home insurance policy , you may find that it is more than likely covered under your contents , if so go ahead and make a claim , that what it is for.

I am amazed at how many people damage or break things of value at home and never bother to make a claim after paying hundreds of pounds a year to cover such items.

Vlebo

[Sam]

Crikey, fingers crossed that everything is fine!

[ZOG]

OUCH, my stomach turned over just reading that. Hope it's ok.

[Doc]

I know exactly how you feel at that moment as a similar thing happened to me.

Words cannot describe it.

I hope everything is ok and by the sound of it, not to much damage has been done.

[Psychobilly]

Its horrid when things like that happen... they seem to happen in slow motion as well

Hope its all still "functional"

Billy....

[Tiny]

It is horrible when it happens. I take real care everything fits and is tight since the wifes expensive refractor fell off its mount over 5' onto stones.

In that case we found the factory fitted dovetail was barely adequate to hold the scope with the mount in the near vertical position. I have always fitted really meaty dovetails to all scopes ever since and check them and all screws on the mount before letting go of the scope for each session.

As to the wifes scope they must be tough as, apart from a mark on the diagonal and the need to tighten a focuser screw all was OK. But it was a nasty moment as was the time up to finding all was OK.

With this in mind glad to know all is OK Pete.

[JAO]

Felt sick when I read your post, everyones nightmare! Hope all is going to be ok

Adrian

[ngc2403]

i hope it is ok, nightmare stuff that

[DemonicOmelette]

I almost had a tragedy last night too, but learned a serious lesson out of it. I was looking at Saturn using my 32mm plossl and my brand new Shorty Plus barlow. Now, I'd been swapping EP's back and forth to try out all the combinations, so hadn't really done the EP holder screw thing up very tight.... Twist the scope around on its EQ mount, and managed to just dive over in time to catch the EP and Barlow combination sliding out of the focuser....

So....... ALWAYS do the little tightener up, EVERY time. Lesson learned.

-eli

[Xlracer]

Hope everything is OK

dAVE

[661-pete]

Sympathies from here too, hope everything is OK. I suppose if it's just a re-collimation job that will be the least painful outcome, but you'll no doubt be checking over carefully for anything come loose inside.

This is one of my constant fears but, thus far the only astronomy thing I've dropped is a counterweight - on my toe! The dovetail on my OTA has got sort of projecting lugs at the end which means it can't slide out when the scope is vertical... I think.. Anyway I always give the fixing screw a lot of wellie...

[michaelmorris]

Fingers crossed for you that all is okay, or at least repairable at minimal cost.