Be at the eyepiece, next to a monitor, tweaking things, eventually something happens that is exhilarating
, exasperating
, or leaves you shaking your head
Some things that have happened to me over the years:
* Got the Spooks called on me when out in a park one night in Sydney's eastern suburbs sorting out a new truss dob. Coincided with the first lot of
"be aware, not alarmed" dob in a terrorist neighbour crap... flaming Spooks go all out "James Bond", cops would just come up and ask what's going on and ask to have a look.
* Had one bloke get crook on me one outreach night, declaring that my 5" SCT "wasn't a real telescope -
I know what a real telescope looks like!"
* Another outreach night, another bloke accused me of being a fraud when he saw Saturn through the same C5. He said I "had put a picture in
that thing!" Closest I ever got to fisty-cuffs in astro!
* One outreach event was at Bear Cottage, the childrens' hospice out Manly way. I discovered the power of video astronomy that night. I also saw how fortunate I was as a father to have to healthy kids. When I got home that night, I cried inconsolably for an hour. Definitely my outreach highlight of all time,
* Crapped myself one night when a sheep crept up behind me at 3am at a dark site and sneezed right behind me! Yeah, yeah, leave the Kiwi jokes out of this please...
* I get a little kick every time I show someone Saturn for the first time,
* Cleaning my video camera one time, the little sucker slipped from my fingers, did a little dance on my frantic fingertips, and then smashed and skipped across a concrete floor... definitely my astro low point...
* "Discovered" Saturn when I was 13 years old. Was following Mars' motion across the sky over a few weeks, when I got suspicious of the reference 'star' I was using. Decided one night just to have a look at this star just for the hell of it, and WOW, GOD DAMN FLAMING SATURN!!!
Just some of the good, the bad and the ugly experiences I've had with astro over the years.
Care to share some of yours?
Alex.