What is the weirdest/funniest thing that has happened to you whilst observing?

[shelltree]

Well, my friend is visiting from Canberra this weekend and was the one to originally solidify my love for astronomy with my first views through a scope. So I've been thinking back to our many observing sessions together and a few funny tales came up.

A couple in particular stand out that still make us laugh hysterically to this day. My favourite would have to have been when my friend and I use to observe in her cul-de-sac. We would set up in front of her driveway and it was a usually very quiet dead end and had the best views. Anyway, she popped back inside to grab something when a car came up the street. On its return down the road I felt something hit my back!

The car drove away and I turned around to find eggs smashed all over the road. I'd been egged!!! Just innocently observing away... :lol: Thankfully they didn't break against my back so no yucky egg juice on me.

The other one that stands out very clearly in my mind and sends me into peels of laughter every time I remember it is when my friend and I attended an SEQAS observing night at the Indooroopilly High School. We didn't take the scope, just looked through other people's and had a good chat.

I had parked near the oval and didn't want to blind everyone with my lights when we left. So I kept the headlights off long enough to turn the car around. Little did I know, a bunch of sticks had lodged themselves beneath my car so when I got back out on the road, all I could here was clunk, clunk, clunk! (bearing in mind I hadn't had my license long either :lol:)

I then went to stop the car, proceeded in stalling it and accidentally beeping the horn like a complete fool! :rofl:

So here we are, two astro chicks on the ground with our red torches pulling sticks out from under my car whilst laughing our heads off. We finally get in the car and back on the road only to face a gigantic hill which I revved too much on and sped away into the night! :rofl::rofl:

I wonder who else has any weird or funny stories to tell whilst observing or attending an astro event? ;)

[alocky]

Too many to list, but one standout is hearing two alpacas 'doing it' in the neighbouring paddock. Not a noise one identifies easily, and rather unusual! My observing partner was badly spooked...
Cheers,
Andrew

[andyc]

Not sure about funny things, but one night in Scotland observing Hale Bopp in the pitch dark (it was almost completely cloudy, the comet was magnificent in a small gap in the clouds), I was walking out with a mate with no lights or torches along a path in the woods. We scared up a whole herd of red deer. From the noise all around, there must've been about 20 of them and we got right into the middle of their herd before they heard or saw us - they're quite big close up. Just a massive rustle of big scarpering shadows into the night in all directions!

In Australia the wildlife is distinctive, instead of a rustle of a running animal, you get THUMP .... Thump .... thump, thump, thump...

[redbeard]

Hi Shelley,

One night I was imaging comet Lemmon. I took a snap and when looking on the laptop screen, I got this fantastic picture of the green tail, all comet shaped and all, and was bragging to my friend over Yahoo at what I just got. As I had not imaged a comet like this before I was stunned by it. It turned out that I left my laser on whilst the shot was taken and it was its reflection that was shaped just like a comet tail. When I worked that out, we both had a good laugh at my 'discovery'. Although, on closer inspection, the comet was actually in the shot. Pic attached.

Cheers,

Damien.

[Exfso]

This happened a couple of years ago. It was well after midnight, not a sound anywhere and absolutely dead still. I had a feeling I was being watched, and turned around to find this bloody big Owl perched about 3 feet from me on the wall of my roll off obs. I reckon I could have nearly touched it. I sure as hell did not hear it land there. When it was aware that I was aware of its presence it departed totally noiseless. These birds are totally stealthy, not even the sound of the wings going through the air, I must admit I was gobsmacked. This bird just levitated.:eyepop:

[Larryp]

Sutherland Astronomical Society have a dark sky site at Bargo-it is a disused emergency airstrip.
We would drive almost to the end of it to set up our scopes, and one night we were confronted by 3 sets of headlights on high beam racing down the strip towards us.
Naturally we were all quite apprehensive, thinking it may be a gang of hoons.
Turned out it was the police-someone had reported there may be a drug party going on!
The cops were OK and we gave them a quick sky tour through our scopes.
After that, a member would call in to the local police on our field nights to let them know we were there.

[issdaol]

Funniest observing event I had was with my partner one night. Went to a dark spot outside of Canberra. It was a clear moonless night so very dark. We had also taken out pet female Siamese cat. The cat loved car trips and never wondered off. Anyway we were all setup and just about to pour a warm coffee and settle in when we heard this very weird deep grunting noise. I have spent time out camping and living on farms but I had never heard anything like this. Ignored it the first time but then the noise came again and the cat started hissing and freaking out. The whole combination of pitch darkness, unfamiliar territory, freaked out cat and my partner getting scared by this weird noise meant that the scope was packed away in world record time and we hightailed it out of there !!!

It turned out that the noise is the noise that Wombats make LoL

[Regulus]

I NEVER see the meteorites. Ever!
I am looking thru the scope, facing the wrong way, or staring down at my shoes (nothing special, but comfy). Every which way except where they allegedly are.
My sometime viewing mate makes the 'Oh, meteor' comment annoyingly often.
I don't believe in them. As was said in the 19th century "Rocks do not fall from the sky' Full Stop

Trev

[RB]

That's hillarious !
Nice 'catch'.

:lol:

[acropolite]

Standing in the dark at Qld Astrofest a stranger wandered up in the dark and started to chat, a bit like a friendly moth, flitting from scope to scope in the darkness, I suspect many at Astrofest met him. "My name's John Smith" he announced "from Tassie", how many people do you actually meet called John Smith.

I shared a class at Launceston matriculation college with a John Smith in 1969, he was then a mature age student, the exact same bloke...

What a small world it is, we had a good laugh and revived some old schoolday memories.

[GrahamL]

At a local lookout with a few others around waiting for comet mcnaught to appear in the afternoon sunset somone asked me where to look , and there it was right were i pointed The guy says wow thats amazing ,,looks just like jet contrails pointing towards brisbane,,,I was only about 20 degrees off I swear ! :)

[astro_nutt]

At a star party some years ago a fellow observer had left her finderscope at home. While she went looking for one, I blu-taced an empty plastic drink bottle where her finder would be. She had a good laugh, but I was wary during the night in case the bottle came back to haunt me!

[redbeard]

Cheers Andrew.

[Screwdriverone]

Here is one I prepared earlier

Post #2, excerpt below

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=116881&page=4


I have had the bejeesus scared out of me once at Linden Observatory when I was there by myself and a wallaby decided to BOUNCE through the bush and freaked me out. :eyepop:

Another time, which was worse, was when I went to Linden, but the gates were closed, so I decided to head to King's Tableland in Wentworth Falls further up.

I drove down the ridgeline for about 5 mins and found a nice entrance road on an exposed ridge with almost 360 degrees panorama and DARK skies. After it took me 15 mins to set everything up, I was in heaven, Andromeda was naked eye, I had gorgeous views, complete silence, inky blackness, coffee, chips and cigarettes (the three C's) and spent a good 4 hours touring visually.

THEN.

I felt a little bladder pressure imminent so I toddled over to the edge of the clearing where the scrub was to relieve myself, lovely still air, staring up at the Milky Way with my old feller out and the sound of tinkling water as I did what I needed to do......when......

BAM, CRASH, THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP, coming closer and closer from in the darkness....STRAIGHT FOR ME. :eyepop:

Here I was, 90kms from home, in the middle of freaking nowhere, NOBODY knew where I was, NOONE around for at least 5kms, wife thinks I am at Linden about 15 ks away, PITCH BLACK, it would take me 15 mins to pack up....AND a steady stream of warm, filtered blood is pouring out all over the bush from an area that no longer has any testicles visible as they had already retreated from whence they came.....

Needless to say I stood there, half frozen from inability to stop my business and zip up, a quarter from terror of WHAT THE F.....is that??? and the rest of me remembering THAT scene in American Werewolf in London in the Scottish highlands where the two backpackers were warned to stay on the roads.....you know the one!

SO, after a few more bash, bash, crash, thumps, I had zipped up, spun around with a rapidly spreading stain in my jeans, RAN to the car, THREW the scope in the back FULLY assembled, SHUT all the doors, LEAPT into the driver's seat, started the ignition and NOTHING!?!?! CLICK CLICK CLICK, no engine, no starter motor......CRAP, I AM DEAD!!!! AHHHHHHH......

I look down, its still in bloody DRIVE!!!!, DAMN, whack it in neutral, start the car, and TEAR OFF down the dirt track like my pants were on fire and stuffed with flesh eating ants!!!!

It took me until Penrith 40kms away to stop looking in the rear vision mirror and my adrenalin had calmed to the point where I decided I could STOP DOING 120kms per hour.....all the while I kept thinking, OVER AND OVER......"Stick to the roads, BEWARE OF THE MOORS"!!!! :eek:

I don't know if it was the Lithgow Panther, a Bunyip or the Boogie Man, but I didn't stick around to find out.

They never did find those two American Hikers........:shrug:

Still gives me goosebumps to this day.

C...C.....C.....C......Chris

[Octane]

Lol, I never get sick of that story, Chris!

H

[rrussell1962]

I used to take my binoculars away from the lights of the village where I grew up to the graveyard of a church about 2 miles away in Essex. One night I went up there, hopped over the wall and a bloke hopped the other way carrying a shovel. I never went back. Found another dark site! Scared the s!!t out of me! Years later I was told that a few people with er alternative interests visited that church due to its remoteness and a rumour that Anne Boleyns heart was buried there.

[shelltree]

Oh my goodness, these are all CLASSIC! I am laughing so hard. Especially at Chris's story! That has to be the funniest thing I've read in a long time :lol:

Australian wildlife always has a way of sounding like someone is coming to murder you in the bush! I am constantly disturbed whilst observing in my backyard (I live on acreage) by the sounds of "THUMP THUMP THUMP" like heavy footfalls of a mad man with a hook in giant black boots coming to kill me!!! *shines torch in general scary direction* Oh, it's just a hare...well, it sounded menacing :P

[Ric]

:lol::lol::lol: That is so true.

[ZeroID]

The 'visuals' on that are just hilarious, I can see it all as it happened. :lol: Thanks Chris for a well written piece of hilarity.

I can echo the McNaught Comet situation.
Bunch of us, locals and my camera all standing around up on the water reservoir lid on Mt Albert, our local volcano looking for McNaught in the evening sky. I'm waving my long lens around scanning the horizon and a wee kid comes wandering over, taps me on the shoulder and points upward and say's "'Is that the Comet ?"
I look away from the camera, turn left and up a wee bit and there is McNaught, hanging in the sky in all her longtailed glory as plain as daylight.
Dumbstruck, just dumbstruck.... :eyepop:

In my defence it was before I found IIS and scopes..... :rolleyes: