Signs your an avid astronomer and may need help (feel free to add your own)

[stanlite]

Signs you are a avid astronomer and may need help (if you think that is a problem that is).

1. You try to identify consterlations out the car window while driving home.

2. You can name the 50th most lumonous stars (both by apparent and absolute magnitude) but can't remember your childrens names.

3. You brought your house based on the level of light popultion and number of cloudy days in the area.

4. You salavate and fawn over a 6inch Triplet APO refractor and would rather spend the night with it then a scantly clad women (or man).

5. you can recite pi to 17 decimal places

6. people mistake you for a vampire but you say you only thirst for appature.

7. you can navagate at night without a compass.

8. you don't care who gets what in the divorce as long as you get the scope and the observatory.

9. you own a observatory.

10. you know people from NASA personally.

11. Your doctor recommends you spend some time tanning or you will get rickets.

12. You would sacrafice your left leg, right arm and entire family to live long enough to see a Supernova in this Galaxy and would throw in the other leg and arm if it was Eta carina.

13. you tell photoshop support that you have an idea for deconvolution that they should make standard in CS6.

14. you hate farmers and there pesky desire for rain.

15. wished you lived on the moons far side.

16. know the date of the next full moon/annual eclipse but can't remember when your wife's/husbands birthday is.

17. you timed your wedding so that you could honeymoon in the northen hemishpere at the right time for an object you wanted to image.

18. Your wife/husband/significant other once thought a date under the stars was romantice till you brought the C14-AF XLT.

19. you gave up on china and now grind your own mirrors.

20. you know pandora is for wimps ... your not a man till you sit up till 4am in minus 8 C because you forgot your freezer jacket but the viewing is to good and medical science can probably save your fingers from frost bite.

21. you have heard of the adaptive optics used in the Large Binocular telescopes and wonder if you could build your own or steal one from Arizona without anyone noticing.

22. you can relate to more then three things on this list so far.

feel free to add your own people. :)

[DavidU]

You walk around the house at night with sun glasses on to keep dark adapted:lol:

[pgc hunter]

You go on a bender when it's cloudy to drown your sorrows


:D

[Paddy]

Or a patch over the eye you use for observing...:whistle:

[Ric]

Guilty of numbers 3, 7 & 10

Hopefully number 9 will happen soon.

Cheers

[Allan_L]

You make all your social engagements after reference to the Lunar Calendar

Whenever you leave the house, you take your mini-giant binos...just in case.

Your wife notices that all your holiday suggestions are to places with no street lights. (and usually with no streets)

You need a bigger truck to transport all your gear to the next star party.

{guilty on all 4 charges :screwy: }

[tlgerdes]

How about asking your sister in-law to move the date of her childs christening as it fell on a new moon weekend?







And she complied :lol:

[shelltree]

:rofl:Hahaha, nice one!

I've done the whole trying to identify constellations/planets whilst driving. Luckily it was a really quiet road because I'm pretty sure I was in the other lane for a bit there.

You're currently reading a book about Dark Matter

You've started watching a lecture on Newton's laws etc. and already have three pages of notes

You've almost watched all the available hubblecasts

Astronomy Picture of the Day is pinned in your "tabs"

You have 8 books "in your cart" on Amazon, all astronomy and physics related

When you go outside you don't even realise you're muttering to yourself the names of stars and constellations and are quite certain your family members hear you mumbling "waxing gibbous" and other such things while taking your washing off the line

You get more excited over finding DSO's through a telescope than anything else you can think of

Cloudy nights make you cranky

[sheeny]

There's a few more signs and symptoms here:

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=33024

:)

Al.

[Zaps]

Refractor discussions make everybody cranky on Cloudy Nights.

;)

[mozzie]

don't go to the inlaws for tea and havent for a while the skies always have something for me to see.thats my story and i'm sticking to it!!!!!

[AdrianF]

You travel far and wide to find the perfect (dark) retirement location. So far I have picked Maidenwell...... Ooooops I didn't say that.

Adrian

[DavidU]

Pack a 4" EQ Newt on your honeymoon.
Guilty !

[steve000]

Diabolically concoct a plan to blow/suck away all the clouds in the night.

Move the moon so it rises after 6am and sets before 6pm almost every single night of the year

Diabolically concoct a plan to combine plan 1 and 2 for the same night. MUHAHAHAHHAHA (lights dim, thunder crashes)

[Matt Wastell]

I know I need help!
I have started a mental list of every day nondescript objects that remind me of astronomical objects - I plan to take photos!

One example to highlight my condition - on the M5 heading towards the city there is a tar patch that looks like the 'horse head nebula'. I look for it every time I drive over it!

I have about 10 items.....who needs help?

[shelltree]

:lol: Touche!

[TrevorW]

and are you still married to the same woman :thumbsup:

[Allan_L]

Ahhh! I LOVE Maidenwell !!! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Greatest Dark Skies !
Took the wife there on our vacation last year (as per point three on my earlier (confession) post !!
*(unfortunately she has no interest in anything astronomically related) :(

[DavidU]

No, LOL, but it was during Haley comet.

[pgc hunter]

-You know you're an astroholic.... when your idea of sexy time is hunting down Abell galaxy clusters in the -20C cold....instead of getting jiggy with it with your Miranda Kerr Look-alike girlfriend

-You know you're an astroholic.... when your dawgs invite you to a pub and shout you booze and hook you up with lap dances but you decline coz you want to stare at tiny near-invisible dust motes alone with dinner plate sized huntsman spiders and deadly redbacks for company coz you afraid that you'll bust a cap from the 100 cloudynights to follow

-You know you're an astroholic... when you hire an entire B-52 air wing to bomb your house coz it's obscuring your western sky even though you could've viewed those objects 2 months or 2 hours earlier

-You know you're an astroholic.... when you buy an SDM or Teeter so you can take it to the next star party and attempt hook in with astro chicks by flauting your hot sexy dob just like how fully sicks pick up by using their fully sik max bling bling cars

-You know you're an astroholic... when you put 50 finders on your scope cos you think it looks super badass

[DavidU]

You insist on a 5D mk11 and an L f2.8 300mm lens for the family snaps camera.

You tell the wife you ordered a tripod for the family camera and when it arrives she asks," why is it so big and whats all the wires for ?"

When you look at any family photo you always look for dust motes and hot pixels.You wonder how it would look with a good colour balance and stretch in CS5. You also think of re doing it in HDR !

Your family computer has 1.5TB of RAW files at any one time:lol:

At night you drive around with the sun roof fully open so you can check transparency and cloud cover.

[that_guy]

Patch of dirt with a line through it reminds you of a galaxy :P

[Allan_L]

Yes, Al,
There are some GREAT ones in that thread :lol: :lol: :lol:

Two of my favourites

and


Great work !!!

[pgc hunter]

When you dare discuss your proposed nocturnal activities with your spouse on your anniversary:

[kingkong01]

Police have approached you in the park with large bright lights held out to the side, to see what you’re doing in the dark, and you refuse to open your eyes because it will spoil your night vision.

[AdrianF]

I just made a cuppa and the frothe in the middle looks like a spiral galaxy.:help:


Adrian

[pgc hunter]

It's the cloud warping your mind.

[stanlite]

you can name all the types of cloud formation and the appropriate curses for each one

[cybereye]

Guilty as charged!!!:D

[pgc hunter]

This is off the top of my head:

High clouds: 8000m to 14000m

Cirrus (Ci)= high level wispy cloud. Indicates approaching cold front. Very high level, not uncommon to be in an airliner at 35,000ft and see these well above you.

Cirrostratus (Cs)= uniform, layer cloud that looks like a "blanket", usually very thin and allows some sunlight to pass through.

Cirrocumulus (Cc) = Appears as several very small "puffs", thicker than Cirrus and cirrostratus.

Mid-Level Clouds: 3000m to 8000m

Altostratus (As)= a thick, transparent layer that allows some sunlight to pass through

Altocumulus (Ac) = appears as hundreds of small "puffs".

Altocumulus Castellenous (ACCAS) = patches of cloud showing some vertical structure similar to cumulus, indicative of moisture and instability in the atmosphere. Often seen as a precursor to thunderstorm activity.

Low Clouds: 0 to 3000m

Nimbostratus (Ns) = rain bearing stratiform cloud, often uniform greyness. Occurs in unstable environments and shows more vertical development than stratus and stratocumulus. Seen on cold fronts. Rain produced may be rather heavy.

Stratus = (S)most boring cloud on earth, slate-grey layer cloud, may produce drizzle

Stratocumulus (SCu)= Similar to stratus but shows more vertical development, produces drizzle or light rain.

Fog = stratus cloud at ground level.

Vertical clouds: 500 to 20000m

Cumulus (Cu)= "fluffy" white clouds, bubbly in appearance and indicates some instability in the atmosphere. Size ranges from only a few hundred feet tall to several thousand. Often seen on summer days when rising thermals cool to the ambient dewpoint temp and condense into what we see as the rising, bubbling structure of a cumulus cloud.

Towering Cumulus (TCu) = massive, towering cumuliform cloud, often found near thunderstorms or themselves may form into storms. Usually contains heavy showers, with tops reaching well over 10,000ft.

Cumulonimbus (Cb) = thunderstorms, can grow to over 20,000m, but more typcally around 10-12000m. Known as "Charlie bravos" in aviation slang.

[[1ponders]]

You ask you family in the photo to start to lean slowly to the west as your tripod doesn't have a terrestrial rate.

[stanlite]

you set up under cload cover and start taking images because its been days since your last hit and you figure IR still penatrates cloud and you might as well catupre some good IR subs well the cloud lasts.

i think it has been cloudy for to long ...

[GrampianStars]

When your other half says:-
"Did the earth move for you too"
your reply is #$%^&* ruined my shot ;)

[shelltree]

You've decided to lose some weight and as a "treat" after losing 'x' amount of kilos, you're considering getting an ED80 and EQ mount with auto-guiding...:whistle:

[Miaplacidus]

... when the pen in your breast pocket is actually a green laser powerful enough to bring down a stealth fighter.

... when you have to wait until sundown to figure out where you are and where north is.

... when you overhear "Uranus" in a doctor's waiting room and you assume that they're talking about the seventh planet.

[pgc hunter]

-You have to attend AA (astronomers anonymous) meetings because your family can't deal with your cloudy weather induced temper anymore

-YOu divorced your wife because it's cloudy

-You jumped off a bridge because it's cloudy

-A clear night is the new Magic mushroom

-You start hanging out with your freinds again rather than be the nocturnal loner you used to be coz it's cloudy

-You ended up with twins.....because it was... well.....cloudy

[Suzy]

In my opinion, this one wins - no sane person can list off all those clouds off the top of their head, surely. Oh, wait -you live in Melbourne don't you?!. :lol:

[ballaratdragons]

When you FINALLY pack away all those Eyepieces, and pack away the Camera and camera adaptors and cables because you have given up on both Visual Astronomy and Imaging.

. . . . . so you can put a video imaging CCD into your scope and do 'LIVE' astronomy broadcasting to the world.

I can't help myself :help:

[astro_nutt]

How about swapping shifts so you can have the night off cause it's a new Moon?

[Inmykombi]

You also know you are in trouble when you spend your lunchbreak outside trying to find VENUS naked eye in the daytime....

You keep trying till your lunch goes cold as you want to show your workmates that you arent really crazy after all.....

You know its there but just cant pinpoint it.

[Jen]

:lol::lol::lol: i love reading these :rofl::rofl:

I knocked back going out on the town for a big girls night out to stay home and practice my imaging on the latest Partial Lunar Eclipse :help::help:

And i am a party animal that loves any opportunity to get out an have a great night :P:D

Yep i got it bad :help::help::help:

[M54]

Each morning I stir my coffee to see what kind of galaxy comes up.:P:D

[Jaybee]

When you book a Romantic weekend away in a secluded cabin in the country...in the very dark country..were there is no light pollution...for your Anniversary...and you take your new scope along...just in case......did I mention its REALLY dark out there.

[Benno85]

When I time getting up to take my 3yr old son to the toilet at night (to avoid bed-wetting) to coincide with the best southerly view from my location and sneak out with the binoculars for a quick sweep along the mily way :question: