I not sure about people trolling astro forums looking for potential prey. BUT you do need to keep your wits about you when at dark sites. I will share an experience i had.
This Easter i was at dark site, looking at skysafari and noticed the moon was about to rise above the horizon. So i quickly packed the scope and camera and headed off to find a good view of the Eastern horizon. I found this one spot. No gate, no keep out signs, nothing. So i drove in and set up.
After taking pics for about 15mins i was startled by a 4WD with spot lights blaring come speeding in, locked up the brakes. This guy jumps out, straight on the front foot yelling swear words and asking what the f i am doing. By this stage we were toe to toe, i replied what the f does it look like? i'm taking pics of the f'ing moon. It was on for young and old.
It turned out he was the owner of this desolate paddock and took great offense for me being there. I am 6'4 and 90kg, the other guy was a tad shorter and a tad heavier and i was thinking it was going to come to blows this guy was so mad. After what seemed like 5mins of me defending my hobby and him defending his baron paddock he finally left with one final threat of firing a gun over my head.
I took that as my cue to leave.
It has is no way put me off going to dark sites but we do live in a crazy world full of crazy people
