The Long Arm

[ZOG]

Dark sky sites are all well and good. The problem being that you tend to be there furtiveley skulking about in the dark, and, as happened to me on my first night time foray last week, just as you have set up the scope, let it cool down,and started polar aligning it, someone in a dark uniform shines a torch in your eyes and enquires, a) what you are up to, is this YOUR car sir, c) what are you looking at, and c) can they have a look which you allow as you stagger into a tree suffering from loss of night vision. Tip, pick a site well out of view of the long arm of the law.

[Ant]

The amount of times that I have been given the breat test in the early hours of the morning, both while driving and observing.

They can be a pain in the Bottom, can't they? They tend to ignore the group of kids that have decided to set fire to a car 200 yards away and ask WHAT I'M DOING...

Ant

[ZOG]

Quote "Are you seriously telling me that you couldnt see what those kids were doing with that big telescope sir ?" :D

[Albireo380]

I remember using my Glen Fruin dark sky site last year when a car drove slowly up the single track road towards me - lights on full beam - then it stopped opposite me. My initial reaction was to loudly tell the occupants to turn the "fff ing lights" off (I think I might also have mentioned something about them being thoughtless and illegitimate). The passenger wound down the window and thanked me for my kind words - it was two policemen (luckily with a sense of humour) - the site was only about 5 miles from Faslane Naval base and they patrol regularly.

I am more careful now when cars approach - next time I might get lifted.

Tom

[FLO]

Sometimes, your not even safe in your own back garden!

http://tinyurl.com/o8fwg

[ZOG]

I get the local "copper chopper" over the garden a lot as I'm directly under the South flight path from the airport. Noisy beasty it is too. On a lighter note, I have a mate who insists we never landed on the moon coz no one can see the bits they left behind through a scope.

[CH]

The amount of times that I have been given the breat test in the early hours of the morning, both while driving and observing.

They can be a pain in the *beep*, can't they? They tend to ignore the group of kids that have decided to set fire to a car 200 yards away and ask WHAT I'M DOING...

Ant

Isn't driving and observing a bit dangerous?

[richard42]

I get the local "copper chopper" over the garden a lot as I'm directly under the South flight path from the airport. Noisy beasty it is too. On a lighter note, I have a mate who insists we never landed on the moon coz no one can see the bits they left behind through a scope.

we could see them if the aliens hadn't taken them