what is the worst stuff up you have done?

KenGee · #1 13-10-2015, 12:28 AM

Don't you hate it when you think your filming/imagining something when you aren't.
On the weekend I was convinced I was capturing a wonderful timelapse of sheet lighting and a sunset but as it got darker I noticed the absence of a small flashing light and got that sinking feeling.

What event have you missed when you think your imagining/filming?

uwahl (Ulrich) · #2 13-10-2015, 03:04 AM

Couldn't get PhD to lock onto a star. After 20 frustrating minutes I found I hadn't turned the mounts tracking on

mental4astro (Alexander) · #3 13-10-2015, 08:24 AM

I'm pretty good at this one...

Here's a brief of my aces over the years. Always when I'm in a mad rush too...

* Left the alt bearings at home of my big dob, only realised when after the two hour drive to the dark site...

* Left the wedge behind rushing to an outreach evening at a school...

* Forgot to pack the finder scopes... several times...

* Left the eyepiece case in the driveway...

* Left sketching stuffs at home - it's like you leaving your camera at home...

* Left charts at home...

* Forgot to charge battery, so no juice to power dew heaters...

Still working on others...

DavidU (Dave) · #4 13-10-2015, 09:41 AM

After spending hours collimating and re adjusting the air space in my achro lens for spherical aberration with a very bad star test, I finally found I was focusing on a double star !!

Shano592 (Shane) · #5 13-10-2015, 10:41 AM

I left a case at home, that houses all of my 2" eyepieces, the control paddle and mount for the Meade, the diagonal...

I had to beg and plead with Sue to meet me halfway to Mangrove Mountain. Luckily, she was going to the cinemas at Tuggerah anyway, just a little earlier than expected now...

deanm (Dean) · #6 13-10-2015, 10:58 AM

I'm with Alexander: drove out to dark site to camp out overnight on a cliff high above the Murray River, intending to video the 2012 Transit of Venus C1-4 contacts.

The next such transit isn't until 2117, so last chance!

I had no idea that so much moisture would arise from the river: in the morning, just before the start of the C1+C2 transit events, my dew heater battery gasped its last & through the streaming water, I couldn't make out the Sun, let alone Venus!

(Got C3+C4 later in the afternoon as the sun dried everything out: phew!)

Dean

RB (Andrew) · #7 13-10-2015, 11:31 AM

One night I was wondering why I couldn't focus on the full moon with my DSLR through the ED80.
Realised later I still had the solar filter on from earlier in the day.

At least my eyes were safe from the full moon's harmful rays.

gregbradley · #8 13-10-2015, 11:58 AM

New mount to me, new RCOS 12.5 tube scope. Opened up the clutches on the mount and didn't have the counterweights on. Whack, the scope swung up rapidly and hit the roof structure and split the carbon fibre tube in one area which I had to repair.

Ouch.

The moral of the story is to be on red alert when using new to you gear until you are familiar with it. Even unpacking it out of the box can cause damage if done too rashly.

Greg.

LewisM · #9 13-10-2015, 12:02 PM

I have had a few, some more Murphy's Law than forgetfulness.

Set up for a kindergarten night to show the kids Saturn, the moon and some bright stars. plugged in the fully charged battery pack. Nothing. the fuse had blown on the power plug... 20 minutes scurrying around at home later I found a spare glass fuse...

Took my stuff for the drive to my dark site on the family farm 5 hours drive away. Got there and realised my CCD was in the garage at home... ah well, 2 beautiful nights of visual viewing anyway.

Set up the stuff in the backyard just a week ago to image. Beautiful polar alignment, tracking was delightful, but I could not get it to guide. PHD kept telling me the star didn't move sufficiently. Hmmmm. After 5 minutes of exasperation, I realised that the guide cable was not plugged into the motor control board....

Bought an introductory level CCD once. Brand new. Excitedly unwrapped it and attached it to the scope - with a masked objective - to do some testing during the day. Something was wrong - the channels were out and not overlapping to form the image, so I unscrewed it from the telescope...and dropped it onto the concrete garage floor! The backplate screws sheared... the backplate went this-a-way, the camera went that-a-way. It was literally 30 minutes old... Anyway, I found some screws, put it back together and surprise of surprises, it STILL worked, and the channels were STILL out of alignment. Insurance paid for that one

Somnium (Aidan) · #10 13-10-2015, 12:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gregbradley

New mount to me, new RCOS 12.5 tube scope. Opened up the clutches on the mount and didn't have the counterweights on. Whack, the scope swung up rapidly and hit the roof structure and split the carbon fibre tube in one area which I had to repair.

Ouch.

The moral of the story is to be on red alert when using new to you gear until you are familiar with it. Even unpacking it out of the box can cause damage if done too rashly.

Greg.

Wow, that is enough to make a navy seal cry like a baby

N1 (Mirko) · #11 13-10-2015, 12:09 PM

Not going to WA for this event even though I could have easily done so.
I had no idea it was happening. The media at the time did what they did best - report about it only after it happened

. I do not want to go back to pre internet times.

Others saw it, and I'm still jealous.

h0ughy (David) · #12 13-10-2015, 01:33 PM

solar eclipse cairns - tested setup and actuation of 4 cameras over 40 times - perfect. setup on site ready to go sit back and enjoy the eclipse only to find the sequencing automation failed due to hardware failure of not one but two sdcards - which threw out the software. not happy jan. the eclipse was a beautiful visual experience

Shiraz (Ray) · #13 13-10-2015, 01:47 PM

set up my automated system to image all night on a couple of targets in beautiful seeing, but missed a select box in the sequencer after making some modifications.

It took the two frames that were accidentally selected and then parked itself for the night.

rustigsmed (Russell) · #14 13-10-2015, 02:05 PM

when I first went to guiding I attempted guiding on a hot pixel for about 5 hours

annoying they look so much like stars.

equipment failure would be the occultation of Saturn, power convertor blew 1 hour before it happened. was set to make a time lapse

, ended up having to take snaps via the old dob with the old push and nudge technique. some nice snaps but no timelapse.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/803366...blic/lightbox/

struggled with longer focal length unfortunately
https://www.flickr.com/photos/803366...blic/lightbox/

pluto (Hugh) · #15 13-10-2015, 04:48 PM

This one wasn't me but when I was up at Port Douglas for the TSE a few years ago, after totality was all over a few people were standing around looking at the shots on the back of my camera. A couple of people asked if I could email them a copy as they didn't have cameras. Then one lady asked if she could have some copies because her husband had accidentally left the lens cap on his camera during totality! Ouch!!

vlazg (George) · #16 13-10-2015, 06:58 PM

Mine happened last night, a beautiful clear night, no cloud to be seen, after spending ages trying to polar align using pd 2 and the drift align tool i could not get the dec line to flatten on either alt or az , finally realised i had not turned on dec guide mode. As i finally had some success my guide camera, ssag, stopped working for some inexplicable reason ( working fine now ).I changed cameras to an atik titan, looking good, slewing to my target, 1.00 am , the usb cable to my ccd snagged, did not see it. It tore the usb port from the camera and i think there was a short circuit as i could feel a tingle when i touched the camera.
Pulled everything down and got home about 3.30 am and sent an email to Atik about repairs and am still waiting for a reply.
This was to be my last chance at any imaging till next April as the wet season is fast approaching, humidity , temperature rising, thunderstorms daily.

( My wife edited this post removing multiple expletives )

Slawomir (Suavi) · #17 13-10-2015, 07:12 PM

When I think about it, my greatest stuff up was...not getting into astronomy much earlier! Have a lot to catch up on...

(relatively speaking)

GrahamL · #18 13-10-2015, 07:44 PM

theres been a few ,,being a little dissapointed with the view through my brand new ethos for five minutes or so before discovering the opaque bottom cap was still on

vlazg (George) · #19 13-10-2015, 08:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slawomir

When I think about it, my greatest stuff up was...not getting into astronomy much earlier! Have a lot to catch up on...

(relatively speaking)

I agree, starting at 64, a lot to learn and not as much time to do it.

andyc (Andy) · #20 15-10-2015, 12:54 PM

Most annoying recent one was shooting all night in JPEG rather than RAW, perfect night, lots and lots of frames, but not half as good as they should've been. I tried stacking them anyway, but the results were pretty disappointing.

Failing to set alarm/wake up for an event has happened a couple of times. You wake up to a beautiful sunny morning, all rested... the you remember that wasn't the plan

Not really a cock-up on my part, but very annoying was my secondary mirror detatching (bad glue) and clobbering my primary, chipping both, on the first day of Shoemaker-Levy 9 hitting Jupiter. Lots of tape and glue later, I saw the second evening

.