|
Hi Paul
My effort yesterday should make you feel better.
My southerly view is blocked so since I picked up my scope last Monday I have been practising setting up with a compass, spirit level, and angle measurer. I'm on leave from work until next week so have been setting up, trying to get my goto to point at the sun (with Baader ND 5.0), then packing up, and repeat several times per day. I've had some luck, where it points at the sun and tracks it for an hour or so. I then I repeat and have no luck and it baffles me.
Yesterday, I set up, asked the goto to find the sun, and I saw nothing. I was baffled and frustrated by this completely blank and dark view. After a few minutes of checking, I then told the scope to park and checked that I was exactly on my marks for home positon and started again. Another blank view - highly frustrating.
I then remembered it was actually daytime and a black view was unusual, I should be seeing blue sky. I then remembered I had put the end cap on the scope when I had a break for lunch. Without thinking I reached around to pull it off and instantly felt intense heat on my cheek and in an instant realised what I had done - I was very very lucky I wasn't still looking through the eyepiece or I would be down to one eye today.
So basically I was looking for something with the end cap still on (if it was night I wonder how long I would have take me to figure it out) and then risked blinding myself because the brain was focussed on my frustration rather than the task at hand.
Cheers
Mick
|