A Cautionary Tale...

[fatwoul]

Last night saw my second use of my SW 80ED since I got it a month or more ago. I had everything set up, and decided to switch from camera to eyepiece for a while. I took my camera off the scope, but I'd left behind find the back cover for the OTA, so I left it open while I went indoors for my eyepiece (which I had also forgotten to take outside).

I came back out, put the eyepiece on, went to focus on Jupiter, and had the life nearly scared out of me by sudden flashes of light and dark. My first thought was that I was having a brain aneurysm, because I am a hypercondriac. My second thought was that maybe a moth was flapping about in the dew shield, so I went to the front to get it out. It was then that I realised that, although I was right about it being a moth, I was wrong about its location; it was inside the telescope, bashing its dusty little body against the objective!

I had to take the telescope inside, out of the damp air, unscrew the objective, remove the moth (which was huge, by the way), and then had to clean the dust off with a lens cloth.

I don't know how common this is, but it taught me a valuable lesson: No matter how briefly you leave your telescope, always - always - put a cap on the back!

[Ags]

It must have been attracted to the concentrated light spilling out of the open eyepiece hole!

[crazyjedi]

That's quite random and scary.

at least you got out for a little viewing. If the skies don't clear soon i'm gonna chew my own fingers off in frustration

[fatwoul]

If it's any consolation, until this week my scopes had sat indoors for exactly a month's worth of cloud. We've had a couple of clear nights (tonight included) but it is so damp outside everything gets soaked in a few minutes.

[KingOfColly]

lol

I had a plane fly across my field of view whilst looking at Jupiter, scared the (place expletive here) out of me

[Freff]

Our budgie's been missing a few weeks....I wonder!!