[ngcles]

Hi jjj & All,

Wonderful question and poll. I probably spend more time dealing with these questions than anyone else on this forum because I work at Sydney Observatory doing public astronomy. It is interesting at this early stage that despite the large number to select from, the poll is fairly even.

I can't say that I find any of them to be exceptionally irritating per se, in fact I look forward to most of them because it gives me a chance to detonate myths (which I quite enjoy) (I bet you didn't know that eh?) -- perhaps with the Uranus jokes being the exception. If you think you're "over it" just imagine how many times I've heard the rings around Uranus line (almost invariably delivered by an 8-10 year-old boy who's convinced he invented it first). I usually respond with something like "oh really! Gee I haven't heard that one in nearly ... oooh ... must be half an hour (while wearing a suitably dismissive facial expression).

Perhaps the one that causes the most chagrin (and teeth grinding) for me personally has been identified by Petra re "can't this telescope see through clouds?". You simply wouldn't believe how many times people have said this to me. Usually followed up by "I thought this telescope would take us so close that we'd be above the clouds?". There are some seriously dopey people out there folks.

I find the astrology questions the most interesting actually and give me a good excuse to talk about precession of the equinoxes, the conservation of angular momentum and demonstrate with my gyroscope (and yes I do have a gyroscope at work for this express purpose), and a host of other things that smash astrology to pieces.

The other night about a week ago I received some wonderful and unexpected support from a member of my group. One lady was moderately enthusiastic about astrology and reckoned that it had to have "something in it" and always read her stars in the paper. She was dumbfounded when another member of the group piped up and said "Well I used to work in the office for the Daily Telegraph back about 10 years ago and I can tell you about a quarter of the time the astrologer failed to meet deadline and we simply used to make up his predictions for the day in the office" -- true story.

Before a couple of years ago I could count on at least one question a month about Nibiru and particularly looked forward to dealing with them, but they seem to be thinning nowadays. Haven't seen a Mars/Moon hoax email this year strangely.

As Robh said, probably one of the most difficult things is when people don't ask questions at all. They're the hardest nights and they usually co-incide with a small group and cloud meaning you really earn your money and go home somewhat hoarse.

Great poll and questions!

Oh and BTW jjj -- you've mis-spelt "Elenin" ...


Best,

Les D

Edit: P.S The question I am asked most is " ... and where can I buy a laser like that?" followed by "Will that laser burn skin too?" -- to whch I normally reply: "I don't know? Stick out your hand and we'll see ..."