How much pain have you endured to see the stars???

[coldlegs]

Between my obs and my shed there is a one metre gap with a small 10cm drop that I mistimed the other night and spectacularly head butted the side of the shed. Now I pride myself in being a quiet backyard astronomer but the neighbours heard me that night and my language was somewhat primitive. It got me thinking about how many of us have stumbled around in the dark and almost killed ourselves in pursuit of it. I did a little tally of my escapades and was surprised.

QTY EVENT
1 Head butted the shed wall
3+ twisted/sprained ankles
7+ tripped over cables and went for a gutsa
20+ Bent up and smacked my head on the scope

How much pain have you endured to see the stars???

Cheers
Stephen

[casstony]

I have had the odd stumble Stephen but looking at your list, have you considered staying on all fours when moving in the dark :)

[astroron]

A broken toe from trying to stop a 13mm type 1 Nagler from hitting my obs floor that didn't have a carpet on it at the time. :tasdevil:
My cries out into the night of "Oh my that hurt" ;) could be hurd for quite a distance:lol::lol:
Cheers:thumbsup:

[MrB]

No physical pain yet in 20 odd years.
My only misshaps seem to be the kind where I drive some crazy distance for dark skies, usually ~300km to the missus' family farm, only to realise I've forgotten something essential.
This is usually followed by crazy desperate thoughts of a 6 hour, ~600km round trip to get the forgotten.

I am however very paranoid about dropping a counterweight on my foot!

[AstralTraveller]

I observe with my wife! :help:





Just kiddin dear :scared3:

[Suzy]

:lol::rofl:
I shouldn't laugh, I'm a girl as well :lol:.

I do pretty well- I observe thru light pollution so not as dark as dark skies but if you're eyes aren't adapted (as when my daughter used to come home in the wee hours of the morning and I'd scare the geebies out of her when I was observing as she couldn't see a thing :lol: ). But I could easily manage to pick up my black Melrose hair clip fallen on the grass :D .

A fruit bat did try to bomb dive my head once which scared the @#$% out me :help:. Oh yes... and then there was a possum who presented himself next to my feet at the telescope and wanted to be fed :rolleyes::screwy:, that was beyond weird hand feeding that possum.

[coldlegs]

I can imagine your decision making the next time it happens...
lens...toe...lens...toe...got nine left....save the lens!!!

"one small step for a bruise
one giant leap for a broken bone"

cheers
Stephen

[sheeny]

No "accidents" that I can recall, but I have observed when its so cold that despite fingerless woollen gloves and ski gloves (but unfortunately you can't wear them all the time while operating) that when it came time to pack up I almost couldn't get my fingers to work enough to disassemble the scope! That was quite painful also.

I'm not sure if it was the same session or another one (I've done a lot of cold observing in Oberon) where the moisture in my breath froze all over the back of the C8... but also all over my moustach and beard and into my throat coat Which I had pulled up over my mouth... there was a bit of pain involved in getting that off as well I seem to remember.

Al.

[Suzy]

:lol::lol::lol: :rofl:

[leon]

I tripped over the newly constructed sand pit i made the day earlier for the Grandkids, totally forgot it was there in the dark, the camera lens went flying in attempt to save my self, :eyepop: flew over the sand pit and landed on the grass, however i landed in the sand. :lol:

Also smacked my head a number of times on the mount, and even slipped and landed on my bum when the grass frosted over whilst imaging.:rolleyes:

Probably a few other stunts i have forgotten about.:shrug:

Leon :thumbsup:

[mental4astro]

I overbalanced lifting a fork mounted C9.25 onto its wedge at an astro viewing night at a local girls' high school. One of the tynes cracked me on the left brow and all I could do was suck it up as there were a lot of kiddies about... What I didn't know until I started packing up was a trickle of blood was running down my face all that time too! :rolleyes:

[tlgerdes]

No, really! You're kidding me. :P

Ahhh, the pain. Driving 3hrs with back pain, just so I can image, does that count? The things we do.

[shelltree]

Oh my goodness, these are all GOLD! :lol: :lol:

Surprisingly I haven't had any run in's whilst observing except for the usual crook neck afterwards! Of course, now that I've said that I'll be tumbling over or smacking my head against the scope, just you wait :P

[tlgerdes]

Sorry, that doesn't count.:P

Now, if you went outside the night after, with a crook neck because you couldnt keep away, that's a didn't story.:thumbsup:

[shelltree]

:lol: That's a strong possibility!

Surprising considering how uncoordinated I am with everything else :P

[Octane]

After spending several hours with the scope mounted on the new pier and polar/drift aligning with PemPro, getting the drift down to less than 15 arcseconds in both axes, I bent down to pick up something I dropped. On the way back up, I smacked my head really hard on the bottom of the counterweight shaft.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

It hurt, for both losing my alignment, and, the sore on my head!

H

[GrahamL]

Going to scope smashed shin on 80 mm slab of silky oak I'd put there to feed some wood ducks,,,stagger left stagger right ,,bloods a flowin,,step into water dish Id also put there for em,,flick muddy contents all over myself,, fall to ground :)

[E_ri_k]

Hehe, some good ones here. Most recently, after aligning the scope and framing an object, all set to start imaging, bent down to do something (can't even remember what!) stood up and smacked my head against the counterweight bar. There goes that!

A few, almost sprained ankles, and a LOT of frights from the dog coming bolting out of nowhere:lol:

Erik

[hobbit]

Well I just squashed my thumb in the tripod leg hinge as i was trying to carry it by the leg like i do my camera tripod. Won't make that mistake again.

[eddiedunlop]

One night at Mt Wilson I split a friend's nose open with my dob when I changed its position suddenly. I felt terrible about this but he was undeterred and continued to observe with blood flowing down his snoz.

[coldlegs]

I'm starting to feel a lot better about myself although I do seem to be the record holder.:D
Cheers
Stephen

[el_draco]

Wanna see my bank statements :eyepop:

[el_draco]

Get a bowen massage. I went from 90% of the time, 9 outa 10 agony to 1% and 1 outa 10 in 1 hours!

Miracle!

[Frostyricho]

A few years back,
I was outside with my first telescope and i was looking at one star. And because i was inexperienced I thought it was saturn. Anyways this was at like 11:00pm at night. My dad was in bed upstairs watching tv. I ran from outside all the way upstairs. Told my dad about it. I went back downstairs and cause my eyes adjusted from the pitch black to the bright light in his room i just ran outside and stacked it over my telescope (lucky it wasn't that expensive) and yea it hurts when all of your eyepieces from your tray fall onto your head plus the telescope. So I layed there in pain and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. My dad comes outside and couldn't see me. All he saw was the telescope on the floor but not me. He eventually finds me and i get up, shake it off and go inside for the night. In the morning i wake up with a black eye, and a few cuts. Who never knew that you could be injured by your telescope.:shrug:
hahahah.

:lol::rofl:

[MichaelSW]

One night I set my Skywatcher 12" Collapsable Dob up on the footpath to give passers-by a look at Saturn. (I live just next to a Brisbane railway station and there is always an early evening peak of returning commuters).

At the end of the session I carried the OTA back inside - no worries. But I tripped and fell forward while carrying the base. Didn't want to just drop it on the ground, so tried to hold it up as I landed elbows first. 18 Kg base - Not a chance with my spindly arms. Didn't let go, but almost ring-barked the end of right ring finger.

Plenty of blood and definitely a need for stitches. But it was a third Tuesday of the Month - SEQAS monthly meeting, so I gave it a wash, quick bandage, took a couple of panadols, and went to the OGM. Home via Casualty at the RBH. It was a LONG night.

Very grateful that I missed landing on the adjacent concrete slab - or it might have been an amputation instead.

[Screwdriverone]

One night, after imaging in the back yard, I came inside after packing everything away and stumbled up the stairs to bed as quiet as I could as it was 4am and I still had my red headtorch on so I didnt wake anyone.

I crept into my bedroom trying not to creak the door and wake the missus.....I turned off the red torch and headed inside the bedroom.

Little did I remember that earlier that day we had moved all the furniture from the upstairs games room (so we could have our carpets cleaned in the morning) into our bedroom and my son had put a THREE SEATER LOUNGE CHAIR between me and my side of the bed, which was COMPLETELY invisible in the now dark, which I promptly banged into, barked BOTH my shins on (down to the bone) and made me fall forward onto the lounge..........

STRAIGHT ON TO something that went crash, crack, tinkle, which just so happened to be the kids 81cm LCD HD TV worth about $1500, which now had two LARGE kneeprints in the middle of the screen from my 120kg frame as well as about 1000 radiating cracks running all over the screen.......

Just so happened that the eldest son decided to put the TV on the lounge to keep it safe. :mad2:

Needless to say, the amount of F$#% and S$%& and F$%#ing H$## that was screamed out, instantly woke the entire family who all rushed in to see me on my hands and knees ON the TV, swearing like a sailor, with blood gushing down my legs onto the lounge and carpet, which cost about another $200 to clean up when the carpet man arrived the next day.

So, in 10 secs, I wasted $1700 and ended up waking everyone up anyway. :(

Needless to say, the torch now stays on right until my head hits the pillow now.....

Cheers

Chris

[Octane]

You've always got the best stories, Chris!

H

[LewisM]

Actually, very little, surprisingly, apart from a sore back/neck trying to align an astrograph without a diagonal (had to go Galileo style straight through). I did head butt the OTA once, but thankfully only the dewshield.

I did ALMOST drop a 5kg counterweight on my foot once when I was getting the counterweight out. Literally a Maxwell Smart "Missed by this much". Would have broken a lot of bones!!!

Other than that, been pain and hassle free.

[Screwdriverone]

Lol H, I always like to set them up and have a bit of a story telling time with them, can you tell?

:D

Cheers

Chris

[seeker372011]

Fallen over twice. My patio is about a metre above the lawn in the back yard. First time I smashed the EQ3 my first mount.

The second time I smashed my back but protected the EQ6.

These days I take the stairs down to the lawn.