Star Party Funny/Horor Stories!! Tell me Yours.

[davewaldo]

Hi Everyone,

I had an interesting experience around the time Venus and Saturn were close by a month or so ago, and it gave me the idea to start this thread.

It was a bit of a horor story so I thought it might be interesting to hear everyone else's funny/scary stories that have happened to them whilst observing or showing friends through their scope.

So I'll kick off with my funny/scary story (I'm sure others have better stories than this).

During the time Saturn and Venus could be seen together I descided to take my 10" Dob over to a friends house to show their family. They have a couple of acres and a low 360 degree horizon.

Well all was going well until the dogs arrived. They were running everywhere so I decided to pack up the gear and call it a night...

... then it happened... one of the kids tried to put a small dog down into my telescope! HAHAHA I laugh now but at the time I was freaked out!

No damage was done and the dog never really went into the scope but it was only seconds away from happening when I put a stop to it!

So if anyone has a better story than "a dog in my scope" I would love to hear it!

cheers,

Dave.

[RB (Andrew)]

LOL a "Dog in Dob" Story.
Interesting thread Dave, look forward to all the stories.
I think I'll move it into the General Chat Forum though.

[ving (David)]

not a star party one but...

I was at home cleaning my primary mirror (for the first time ever). i had teh rear cell off and the tube laying on the ground. cant fall far fromthere can it? i went into the kitchen and washed the primary and turned around to see 2 eyes staring at me from behind the secondary holder! my cat had decided to use the tube as a cubby. I couldnt get him to back out and ... well i dont know why buy i started to panic a bit...

to this day i can still look down the tube and see faint claw marks where i tipped him out

[wavelandscott (Scott)]

I once saw a child attending a public star party use a metal tube dobsonsian mounted reflector as a rubbish bin for a serviette (napkin) that they had used from the nearby sausage sizzle...it happened so fast I did not get a chance to stop them...

The scope was kind of unattended as I was talking with some other people at the time. I do believe that they did not realize it was a scope...I was able to retrieve the wrapper as it was hanging on the secondary...

It is kind of funny now but at the time not so much!

[GrahamL]

Second time I saw comet mcnaught I was waiting for it to appear at a local lookout, there was a couple there hopeing to have a look as well.
And there it was so I pointed it out to them , messing with with my camera I hadn't looked for a minute or so . the guy says.. wow thats
just amazeing , it looks so like a vapor trail of a jet

A few minutes later the real comet appeared

[GeoffW1 (Geoff)]

Hi,

A few years ago we visited Uluru and went to a 'dinner in the desert' at the Sounds of Silence Restaurant (by the way, this is a fantastic experience, I recommend it). This outing begins with a sunset talk at the lookout area, where they serve champers with a didjeridu (yup, look it up) serenade, and then dinner in an absolutely breathtaking outdoor desert setting with endless wine. Well, I overdid it somewhat, and really disgraced myself at the next stage.

This was a star party, which as you can imagine was in about the best spot in the whole continent. There were 2 telescopes, don't ask me what they were, because I was by that time not really myself, but I recall they were BIG.

Somehow I got there ahead of the rest of the group, and decided I would align these telescopes myself, onto the most interesting objects. Then the proper person arrived, an attractive young lady with a laser pointer.

Oh, the shame of it. Cringe. Humiliation forbids me from being more detailed about what ensued, but if you, Ms, our star party guide at Uluru, are reading this now by any chance, I want to apologise to you, and say that I realised next morning how much more I had to know before doing something like that. It was a major step for me.

Now colleagues, if I ever turn up next to YOUR precious instrument somewhere, be assured I am a changed person.

Cheers

[Dennis]

At a Brisbane Astronomical Society public viewing night at Mount Coot-tha, I once, momentarily, turned my attention away from my Vixen 4” refractor mounted on a Vixen GPDX equatorial mount, tracking with the Skysensor 2000.

Some sinister feeling made me look around and a shiver went up my spine as I saw a young child swinging from the focuser trying to get to the eyepiece, with dad blissfully looking on…

I no longer leave my ‘scope unattended at these events.

Cheers

Dennis

PS – I thought I should mention…mercifully…no damage was done...to 'scope, mount or child!

[davewaldo]

Haha... these are good, keep them coming.


I have another story.

Soon after I got my first good telescope, my 10" Dob. My Father, brother-in-law and I went up Mt Tamborine for a little star gazing. For those who don't know, Mt Tamborine is a well populated mini-mountain out the back of the Gold Coast.

It was the middle of winter and windy. The only half decent spot we could find was a clearing near a road (where the hang-gliders go). It was not a perfect spot, as cars ocasionally went by ruining dark adaption.

Well, we hadn't really come prepared for the cold and wind and after setting up it was hard to concentrate on anything. So my brother-in-law decided we could use some white towels he had in the car to keep us warm (1 towel each). After wrapping them around us a few different ways we discovered the best way to keep warm was to wrap them around our heads....

So I continued giving a tour of the heavens, each time a car went past, we all hid our faces to protect our eyes from the light.

Well, it wasn't long until the COPS turned up after hearing reports of "Seedy taliban looking folk, kneeling next to a 'rocket Launcher' who were hiding their faces!"

We all had quite a Laugh!

Once the police worked out we were quite harmless and not about to shoot down any planes, they left us alone.



Thats all my funny stories..... Lets hear some more!

[RB (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by davewaldo

Well, it wasn't long until the COPS turned up after hearing reports of "Seedy taliban looking folk, kneeling next to a 'rocket Launcher' who were hiding their faces!"

We all had quite a Laugh!

Once the police worked out we were quite harmless and not about to shoot down any planes, they left us alone.

Lucky you didn't have a green laser mounted on your scope.

[IanL]

A few of us went out to Muirshield country park in Scotland for a dark site location. We were all set up and it was pitch black. One of my friends wanted to point his scope at Orion but it was just hiding behind a tree top. Looking up and cluching a 10" scope and mount he started walking back keeping an eye on the tree top until Orion was above them.
Next thing i heard was AAAAhhhhhh Bas$tard AAAAAhhhhh "HELP THE SCOPE" "THE SCOPE" GET THE SCOPE"


Rushing to our friend’s aid only to find he had stepped back onto a cattle grid and falling over he was about 2 feet shorter than normal but amazingly enough still clutching the scope in one piece.


Ian

[GrahamL]

haha Ian ..that didn't turn out to bad ,starting to read that i thought
walking backwards in the dark "without" a scope in your arms is going to go wrong sooner or later

[leon]

These are great stories, i wish i could contribute, but cant think of any funny ones, other than imaging all night with out film in the camera, leaving the bottom caps on EP's and wondering why i couldn't focus, let alone see anything, only stuff like that, keep em coming, there a good read.

Leon

[astroron (Ron)]

Many years ago one of the members of the Suncoast Astronomical Society bought a Newtonian scope off the club Presedent. When observing one night looked through the eyepiece at the zenith to find everything was fuzzy. on investigation found a bat had crapped on the mirror. A mad scramble was then put in place to disassemble the scope and clean the mirror before any damage was done