I do have to laugh at some of the comments I've tried to field just setting up the scope all on my lonesome, but easily-bored onlookers can take that the wrong way ("smarmy ******* thinks he's better than us") and you end up arguing from the bottom of a bottomless pit...
One thing I know I'd have loved at the time - answers I could use to fill the gaps. (Preferably tested and confirmed by painful experience!)
Oh how shameful it is to say "I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that question. Let me look in to it and let you know..." Many times I feel like I've lost them, right there. But just once, it wasn't in vain. I heard my simplistic explanation of the lunar eclipse two days later in the local, with the young bloke correcting one of his mates. So occasionally it sticks!
So do people here with this (unfortunately, painfully acquired) expertise have a favourite response to the biggies? I did like the Saturn's rings as lost luggage "misdirection"...
What an interesting thread!
