CAUTION: Truss Dob + ASIO = person of interest!

[mental4astro]

Hi all,

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the theater...

Tonight I finally determined the length of the poles of my truss dob. Took the dob components to Dudley Park in Sydney's Dover Heights as it has a great view of the city sky line. Found out it is surrounded by paranoid residents too!

I had the help of my mum and sister. Their help was much appreciated too.

No sooner did I start setting up the scope that one of the residents made his presence felt by a none to subtle shot that he was 'seeing that it wasn't kids setting of fireworks'! Yeah, right, with his menecing stand-over pose.

Five minutes latter, there was the grinding crunch of hard braking and some sheila appears, takes some quick pics and takes off in a hurry!

WOW!

Now I'm a person of interest to ASIO!! :D! Woohoo, you morons. Instead of approaching me and asking what is going on, you jump to conclusions! Great job! Not.

I'm quite sure this would have happened if I had set up during the day too. Probably serves me right for being overly cautious in not wanting to inadvertently zapping my eyes with the sun's reflection from a 17.5" mirror, :mad2:.


So, watch out, boys and girls! Set up your dobbies in the wrong neighbourhood, and ASIO will put you in their little red book!

Mental.

P.S. Hey, Spooks, go to this link and see what I'm doing, know-it-alls:

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=54572

[casstony]

You could wear some striped pyjamas next time and an IIS balaclava :) . Sounds like a fun neighborhood.

[GrahamL]

I can relate to this mental , once I took my scope down the local hockey field the only car that drove past when I was unloading really took an interest in what i was carrying , sure enough the cops show up 20 minutes later.. aside checking out my car and a quick sweep of the field with a torch they didn't see me . :)

[sheeny]

:lol: Back in the '80s I used to occasionally drive up the local lookout to do some binocular observing. I was there one night with the back door of the Sigma station wagon open with my charts and observing journal open... I had my head down making some notes when the cops swung in behind me with their high beam on and then both stepped out with mag lights on me held out to the side.

When I turned around to speak to them I started off with one eye shut trying to preserve some night vision, but thought better about it when I saw their demeanour.:lol:

Once they saw my charts and journal they were OK and even asked to have a look. I explained they wouldn't see much unless they waited half an hour to develop some night vision, but they didn't have that sort of time... they had a quick squizz at M42 and were off.

These days the lookout is locked at night:rolleyes:.

Al.

[mch62]

What did you expect setting up that rocket launcher to shoot down space shuttles:P
Mark

[gmbfilter]

Probably become the next passport picture in an assassination squad
Good luck
I'm sure someone will visit you in prison..

[kinetic]

The police helicopter searchlight was shone down at me late one
night through the dome slot.
I didn't have time to get inside the house before it found me.
I must have been one of two people with no sane or legal
reason to be out that late at night :)

Steve

[TheDecepticon]

Cool story! We could pass the hat around to bail you out. :lol:
I didn't realize you are in Adelaide, Steve. I know the chopper your talking about, they got the biggest bird gesture I could do one night from my back yard, too.:whistle:

[kustard]

When I was living in Sutherland I took my C8 down to Waratah Park to have a play with it and along the car park area there were a few cars with some teenagers "parking". I guess they were watching me trundle back and forth from the car to the middle of the oval because after a while they all came out of their cars and asked what I was doing. I had the moon in the eyepiece and so I let them have a look. They ended up hanging around for about an hour or so as I showed them various objects.

A friend and I have also set up our scopes in the National Park and have had Rangers come along and ask us what we were doing. All of the time they have been decent about it but their lights really ruin your dark adaption.

[lacad01]

Nice one Alex, I'll visit you in Long Bay mate :lol:

[mental4astro]

This experience has shown me the great ignorance that the general public has about astronomy, our gear and that it is a noctural pursuit.

Rock up as I did, with a contraption that to them looks like "some kind of device", and Merry Hell breaks loose. Tell them that it's a scope, and you are a 'liar' as "a telescope does not look like that! I know!" Sheeesh, :rolleyes:!

Truss dobs have evolved to such an extent that I can only see that my three pole dobbie with exposed spider will only endear me to ASIO even more.

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=73044&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1268519691 (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/attachment_browse.php?a=73044)

And this pic is of it in its 'compressed' transport form. I can see it's a scope. You can see it's a scope. Joe Blow sees 'suspicious device'. It's going to be a loooonnng astro career.

And then the Spooks have to get all 'James Bond' about things. Pretty soon we'll have to register our gear...

My little C5 is also viewed with suspicion, even by those who I'm letting have a look through it, like I'm having them on that it's a scope and I'm trying a fast one! For what end? I have never been able to figure it out. And it's only gonna get worse now. Thanks very much Nuclear Arms Race!

[kinetic]

Two (?) years ago Alex I was setting up nightly on the hill behind me
in an open area near the roadside to get SLR stuff of Comet McNaught.

It was at the height of the bushfire season and even though I had my
wife, son and daughter there with me most nights, I'd get the
eyeball of nearly every car passing.

Most nights after sunset a few cars would pull in and have a look
through my small 4" scope but I advised them that it would be
a disappointment and the real show would start about an hour after
sunset using only their eyes.
Most left before that and therefore missed the sight of a lifetime.
The few that stayed were in absolute awe. A few swapped emails
and phone numbers to ask for copies of my prints. After night 2 I had
some glossy 8 by 10s I could show them.

It's certainly a shame that our hobby can't be popularised more by
people who have a talent for grabbing people's attention and interest.
Their lives , sadly, are poorer for missing out on this stuff IMHO.

Steve

[AstralTraveller]

Try doing grazing occultations, especially in the old days. A bunch of cars pull up at some remote spot, but never remote enough to have no houses nearby, at 2am. If you get past that then you set up one of those suspicious devices and turn on something that emits a beep every second (and boy does that travel well at night). Then you look into the suspicious device and start a strange commentary - "I see the star .... still there .... still there .... gone!! .... still gone .... back!! .... (etc)".

Visits by the coppers were alomost routine. One bloke, when asked by a copper what he was doing replied "not now, can't you see I'm busy". He did explain himself after the graze and give the copper a look through the scope. Still, I only know of one case of someone having a gun pulled on them!

[Waxing_Gibbous]

Good thing you didn't have any Ice Tea with you!

[Baddad]

Hi Alexander & All, :)

I can relate to your experiences. Although mine was not as drama filled.
I was viewing the moon with my Celestron 200mm SCT. A visitor enquired what I was doing.:question:

"That's not a telescope! That's not the moon... You gotta' photo in there. Or a movie or something. ":question::shrug:

After a little more viewing at Saturn he was finally convinced.
I rarely bring out the scope when visitors are present now.:P

Cheers Marty

[Ric]

I suppose you just have to laugh at the paranoid tendencies of the public when confronted with something out of ordinary.

I wonder what they would think if we all wore black suits and sunglasses and told that we were protecting the Earth from alien invasion. ;)

[Steffen]

Haha, classic! Have you considered getting some ***** stencils and spray-painting some random letters and numbers onto the base of your Dob? :rofl:

Like Steve, I was shouted at by some guys while trying to photograph McNaught from a hill near my house. They thought I was perving into the bedrooms of nearby flats. After I showed them the comet in the sky they became quite apologetic and excited about the show in the sky… :)

Cheers
Steffen.

[Screwdriverone]

Hey Alex,

Classic tale, I would hate to think what would happen if we all got together in a suburban hill park and set up our dobs in a row, probably get the Army or the Air Force doing a pre-emptive strike on the missile battery that we set up.

I used to get "buzzed" by the cops all the time down at Hawkesbury lookout when I used to stay out all night picking up chicks on the CB and using the height and the skip to get more range to my signal.
They always used to stop and see the CB aerial at 3am and then pick on me for my supposedly "stolen" number plates (stolen off a cop's car in 1961) yet they were my personal number plates issued in 1988 - Bicentennial version. Even though I kept pointing this logic out to them and they all promised to clean the wrong records off the system, every time there was a new constable on the graveyard shift, out they would come again and hassle me again.

Lucky I didnt have a telescope at the time, although in '87 I had some binoculars in the car to look at Halley's (disappointing) and they quizzed me about those, even though there were no houses for about 2km.

Paranoid neighbours havent reared their ugly heads yet, but I have had a few weird looks up at the park when I occasionally want to get out of the light pollution at home.

Perhaps they should change the catchphrase of the Anti-Terrorist ads to "See something, Observe DSO's and Planets, say something" to your friends.....on Ice In Space of course!"

It is a pity there arent more enlightened people around, or, perhaps that is a blessing?

Cheers

Chris

[AG Hybrid]

I gotta admit these stories are absolutely hilarious! And Alex the only thing that could make this funnier is if you put a laser pointer on it, and yelled out "PREPARE TO FIRE ZE MISSILE!" :rofl:, or you got arrested.

But, why dont we take a look at what the average person perceives what a telescope is? When I started started this hobby about over a year ago now, I didnt think of even newtonians as a telescope. But a truss tube Dob? Thats a crazy looking thing. Which end do I look into?
I bet if you were setting up a refractor designed telescope, that dude would have instantly recognised your using a telescope.

I wouldnt worry too much about being a person of interest to ASIO. I'm sure they have better things to do then to grief a family man with a awesome hobby and a fold up yard cannon :D. I think it policy now for them to take a little look into every possible suspected naught person anyway.

[MuntiNZ]

Mate its just as well you didnt have green lasers or they woulda killed you for sure!!!

[mental4astro]

It hadn't occured to me to pack it! :scared2:

Ever see 'Men In Black'? Mmm, with the number of really black Black Hawk helicopters buzzing the city of an evening: ZAP, WHAM, KABOOOOM! RATATATATATAT... now, folks, if you will all just kindly look at this light...

;)

[[1ponders]]

A friendly reminder to please consider things before posting. IIS is user friendly, all users.

[Jeffkop]

Just tell anyone who asks ... zis is only za telescopic sight ... vait till you see za canon :lol::lol:

[tlgerdes]

See Alex lives in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, if he had done something "normal", like carrying a burning cross, sell drugs from the back of his car or was dressed in high heels and his wife underwear, no one would have batted an eyelid :rofl:

[Kal]

I've heard of people who are into photography wearing t-shirts that say "I'm a photographer not a terrorist!"

Perhaps we need to organize some t-shirts that say "I'm an astronomer not a terrorist!"

[Wavytone]

Alex you should have said you're testing photon torpedos :)
But then ASIO might lack a sense of humour.

[mental4astro]

Reminded me of an incident nearly a year ago when we were starting to go to the Katoomba Airfield:

I had picked up Hickny from his place on route to Katoomba, with the old Odyssey II occupying the whole length of the passenger side, from glove box to rear gate of my 4X4 Mazda Tribute.

We were about to enter Parramatta road when we were stopped for a random breath test. Man, didn't the copper do a huge double take when he saw the huge white tube with missile signage down its length.

Only after did we think of wierd explainations for it, but probably for the best that we didn't say that it was an "electromagnetic radiation photon multiplier", :P.

The copper was really good natured about it. Spooks? Hmmm, after this one, probably <ZAPPP>.

[Baddad]

Hi Trevor,:)

That's bordering on rudeness. :rofl::lol::rofl::lol:

I nearly fell off my chair. However its close to the truth. Sadly.

Because people don't feel immediately threatened by the above is why they don't bat the eyelid.

Cheers Marty

[M54]

What an hilarious bunch of stories. :lol::lol::lol::rofl::lol:

I had a local householder turn on his car headlights and point the car in our direction while we were out observing adjacent to the local reservoir.
It's very offputting and made me feel guilty for being there, but I suppose I would be suspicious if someone were messing about near my house at night. Maybe we should have informed him first.:question:

[astronut]

MAS has an observing field at The Oaks, 15km west of Camden.
This happened to me after an excellent night of observing, (3am) it was cold so I was wearing my freezer suit, beanie and boots with my head torch over my beanie.
Next to me in my Laser (with all the seats down) was my 12"LB in pieces, my charts, chart table etc.
I drove through the only intersection in the township. All of sudden this black supped up Falcon came up behind me and followed me for a kilometre.
Then the inevitable, red and blue lights started to flash, I pulled over and waited for the officer to come to the window.
I wound down the window to be greeted by an officer with a stunned look on his face " I've stopped you for a random breath test"
"Coming home from work" He had a good look with the help of a torch in the back.
"What's all this equipment"
This is a telescope, I've been observing with my club at The Oaks"
When he realised I wasn't a member of the Taliban, he told me that a year ago he had been at a Public Night at Campbelltown Observatory.
I told him that it was held by our club. He was very grateful for the info and then asked where Jupiter was in the sky (luckily it was at the zenith at the time) after tens minutes discussing Astronomy. I thought I would be on my way. Instead he said, Sir could you please blow into this device.
This gave my fellow members a good laugh at the next meeting.:lol:

[DavidU]

Years ago when it was a breathalyser bag......
"Would you blow into the bag Sir?...Why? are your chips too hot? LOL

[Ric]

There used to be another comment as well which is a bit rude for here.

I tried it out when I was young and cheeky ;) on a breathalyser unit, lets say that it went down like a lead balloon. :help:

[Screwdriverone]

Let me see Ric... did it go like this?

Policeman: "Blow into this please driver"
Driver: "But that doesn't look like a.... "
Policeman: "JUST blow into it"

Clean enough?

Cheers ;)

Chris