What are your Laws of Astronomy?

[Moonshed]

Mine go something like this:

1st Law. The more complicated and difficult it is to set up your gear the less it will be used.

2nd Law. Any new astro equipment is immediately followed by at least two weeks of total cloud cover.

3rd Law. Every significant astro event (eclipses, meteor showers etc) will cause clouds to obscure it.

4th Law. If you set up your gear early in daylight so as to be definitely ready to observe/image it will rain soon as it get dark.

5th Law. The better your polar alignment the greater the risk of bumping into the tripod and ruining it.

6th Law. You will trip over the cables and knock the mount having polar aligned and completed star alignment.

7th Law. It will take a while to figure out that the reason your GOTO is way out is because you haven’t changed from GMT/BST

8th Law. You will forget to remove the focus mask and continue to take images.

9th Law. Your neighbour will turn on their insecurity light seconds after you start imaging.

10th Law. You can never, ever, ever trust a weather forecast, unless it predicts rainfall over your house.

That will do for now😄

[Mr H in Yorkshire]

North Norfolk eh? For a minute I thought you were describing laws for Yorkshire. I understand there was an aurora recently, missed that too.

[Moonshed]

1 minute ago, Mr H in Yorkshire said:

North Norfolk eh? For a minute I thought you were describing laws for Yorkshire. I understand there was an aurora recently, missed that too.

Don’t remind me, I missed it too.

[Mognet]

Sounds familiar. Set up to take images Sunday night and next door neighbour turned his spare room light on. I walked indoors to get some food while waiting for him to turn it off and two minutes later the skies lit up with the aurora. Only found out from checking the sky camera later

Then to top it all, I went back out once he'd turned his light off having left my kit powered up. Did the polar alignment, picked a target, set an imaging run going, and then the battery went flat. I discovered that an hour later after taking only one blurry image

So I think I'll add to the laws:

• Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. But if you can fix things as they happen, then everything will go wrong!
• If there's any short lived significant astronomical event on a clear night, it'll happen when you're looking the other way

[Moonshed]

7 minutes ago, Mognet said:

• Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. But if you can fix things as they happen, then everything will go wrong!
• If there's any short lived significant astronomical event on a clear night, it'll happen when you're looking the other way

Definitely should be included in the Laws of Astronomy! 

[Stu]

I think I can add a few……

Any clear night will occur when you have another commitment or have to be up at silly o’clock the next day.

Once your mount is aligned, there is a 100% chance you will somehow pull the power lead out and have to start again.

The target you really want to see will be behind the big tree in the middle of the garden.

The larger the kit you put out, and the longer it takes to setup, the poorer the seeing will be.

If there is a once in a decade auroral event visible in Somerset, your wife will be away so you are stuck in the house with small person, wondering what it looks like hidden behind that big hill! 🤪

Plenty more like that I’m sure!

On a positive note, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to have caught quite a few of the more recent events, often with clear skies arriving unexpectedly so it’s not all bad.

[cajen2]

Two more:

if the sky is clear and sunny all day, it'll be cloudy immediately after sunset,

if you get patchy cloud of a night, whatever you want to view will be behind the cloud.

Your target is clear? Beware: by the time you set up the scope, it won't be! That's why I pity the poor APers....

[Moonshed]

Stu and cajen2.  Love your laws! Defo need to be included! 😂

[markse68]

couple more

The best clear nights are always accompanied by a full moon

The brightest best meteors always occur when you’re looking at something else through your scope (pretty sure that must be the case anyway  )

Mark

 

[Mognet]

12 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

if the sky is clear and sunny all day, it'll be cloudy immediately after sunset,

That happened here yesterday. And I've seen it happen three days in a row recently too, so this is definitely one of the Laws of Astronomy

[Mr H in Yorkshire]

Another one, based on the weather forecast you start something on your equipment that will take two days at least to complete. The following two nights the sky is crystal clear and steady, thereafter follows a fortnight of cloud.

[Mr Spock]

Rule: The number of spiders living inside a Newt tube is exponential to the size of the tube.

[Telescope40]

if you get patchy cloud of a night, whatever you want to view will be behind the cloud.  @cajen2

This law was found on the Rosetta Stone. Egyptians had the same issue 😂😂😂

[Zermelo]

The further you travel to a dark site, the more likely it will be that you forgot to bring an item that will prove essential.

[Ibbo!]

Whatever size allen key you need will be he one missing from the set and if they are all here they will be metric and you need imperial.

[Moonshed]

2 hours ago, Stu said:

If there is a once in a decade auroral event visible in Somerset, your wife will be away so you are stuck in the house with small person, wondering what it looks like hidden behind that big hill! 🤪

That reminds me. Back in 1999 or thereabouts when I was living in Scotland I had been a member of the local astronomical society for a few years, in fact I was the poor guy who was charged with producing the monthly newsletter. It was always my dearest wish to see the Aurora Borealis, I still haven’t! Even booked a flight a couple of years back from Norwich airport and it was cancelled at the last minute due to lack of interest! Anyway, back to the story. On this particular night the sky was lit up with the most breathtaking display that had been seen in Scotland for decades. Guess what, even though it was only 11.00 pm they didn’t bother to phone me, only the three that run the association phoned each other. Their excuse was they didn’t want to wake me up, the truth is they didn’t want to waste 5 mins calling a few people each when they could be out there getting wonderful photos. At the next meeting, in the same week as it happens, the three of them came in carrying stacks of incredible photos of the Aurora.
That’s when I quit.

That’s a problem I have run into a number of times (I have moved house over 20 times) that some astronomical associations can be very cliquish. Such a shame because it shouldn’t be like that. However, there are many really good societies thankfully.

 

Edited March 3, 2023 by Moonshed

[SuburbanMak]

1) There's no such thing as wearing too many pairs of socks.

2) There's no such thing as a  bad session - time spent observing is better than time on the sofa.

3) If the moon is up, get a glass of wine, go in the garden & look at some planets, doubles & bright clusters, then look at the moon.

4) If the moon is down, get in the car, go somewhere darker, look at all the other things. 

5) Prepare in advance to find the targets you are looking for...

6) ...but if it isn't working, don't get bogged down on hours of fruitless searching, tour your favourites. 

7) Sketch what you see - even if you never show anyone it makes you look harder. 

8 ) Read up on the astrophysics of what you've seen that night when you get in over a nice cup of tea and/or a whisky. 

[cajen2]

2 hours ago, Zermelo said:

The further you travel to a dark site, the more likely it will be that you forgot to bring an item that will prove essential.

That happened to me......travelled two hours to a dark site in Wales. It rained almost continuously for two days, then the skies cleared. I got the scope out of the van to collimate it and then found I'd left the dob base behind. Only me......

The worst thing was, on the first night my partner phoned and told me I'd left the base in the middle of the lounge. I thought she meant the little dolly it sits on for easy indoor shifting. I really must learn to think a bit more....

Edited March 3, 2023 by cajen2

[Ratlet]

Astronomy is like playing Civilization.  Only instead of one more turn, it's one more eyepiece/filter/gizmo and you are less likely to get nuked by Ghandi.

 

[Ratlet]

Oh, my indisputable law of astroinmaging:

Clear skies will only occur within +/- 3 days of the full moon.

[Stu]

2 hours ago, SuburbanMak said:

1) There's no such thing as wearing too many pairs of socks.

Ooh, controversial. I think this could kick off a healthy debate with @Ibbo! about the concept of ‘over socking’ 🤣

[SuburbanMak]

1 minute ago, Stu said:

Ooh, controversial. I think this could kick off a healthy debate with @Ibbo! about the concept of ‘over socking’ 🤣

I work on the basis that if one finds oneself over-socked whilst out one can do something about it, whereas undersocked can be session-limiting. (The same holds for long-johns, although you have to be confident you're in an isolated spot for that one...)

[iantaylor2uk]

People will expect you to sell good quality unused equipment for a fraction of the original price, unless you have a rare piece of equipment, and then people will accuse you of profiteering!

[markse68]

2 minutes ago, iantaylor2uk said:

People will expect you to sell good quality unused equipment for a fraction of the original price, unless you have a rare piece of equipment, and then people will accuse you of profiteering!

I don’t think that’s astronomy specific

Mark

[Telescope40]

No matter what price you advertise a piece of kit at, all enquiries will ask if any wiggle room on the price !!