Astronomy Disasters ? - Page 2

GrahamL · #21 13-11-2008, 08:15 PM

... well thats a pretty special effort jjj.. I'm with Ron and am not worthy in the presence of such royalty

what did the horses make of all this btw ???

BerrieK · #22 13-11-2008, 08:29 PM

jj you are funny. Lucky you didn't roll through a pile of horse poo on the way to the bottom (dont mind the pun) of the hill!

Galactic G (Greg) · #23 05-01-2009, 11:12 AM

I had an astronomy disaster last night.

I'd forgotten I had my favourite pair of binos sitting on the edge of my dobson base. In the wee hours of this morning when I picked up the dob base to take it inside I got right across the back lawn, on to the concrete path, before my binos decided to leap to their doom.

*CRASH**CLINK**RATTLE*

I swore.

R.I.P. (Rest in Pieces) binos.

I'd had them for more than 10 years. They were great binos.

jjjnettie (Jeanette) · #24 05-01-2009, 11:23 AM

Commiserations on your loss.
Did you lose both sides of the binos?
If not, all is not lost as you now have an excellent new finder scope.

Galactic G (Greg) · #25 05-01-2009, 11:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

Did you lose both sides of the binos?

Cracked the EP surround on one side, and looks/sounds like I've broken one of the prisms on the other side.

Quote:

you now have an excellent new finder scope.

Hmmm, I hadn't thought about it like that.

erick (Eric) · #26 05-01-2009, 11:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Galactic G

"you now have an excellent new finder scope. "

Hmmm, I hadn't thought about it like that.

Get the hacksaw out!

wasyoungonce (Brendan) · #27 05-01-2009, 12:33 PM

One of my dogs has taken a liking to my scope data and power leads...chewed the lot he did

!.....mutter mutter mutter

Smirnoff · #28 05-01-2009, 02:14 PM

for some reason, my cats very much enjoy urinating on the base of my 10" dob.

TrevorW · #29 05-01-2009, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

My worst experience
One evening, walking out to the shed where I keep my scope, it was a very dark clear night, I was looking up, as you do, trying to judge the seeing, when I tripped over a coiled up hose. I landed knee first on the edge of a concrete step. I spent the next few days using a granny walker to get around, then graduated to crutches which I had to use for a few weeks.
It was during this time that I hobbled out to the front paddock, got into my snug warm sleeping bag ready to watch (I think) the Geminid meteor shower . I rolled over to get more comfy, and couldn't stop myself, I kept rolling down the hill till I ran into the electric fence.

That would have been a shocking experience

TrevorW · #30 05-01-2009, 02:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jen

Hey you
(jen chases Astral around the room)
you have been a very very bad boy now go to my room

Can I come too

wasyoungonce (Brendan) · #31 05-01-2009, 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smirnoff

for some reason, my cats very much enjoy urinating on the base of my 10" dob.

That's funny...they think it is worth peeing on...as opposed to it isn't!

Jen · #32 05-01-2009, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Galactic G

I had an astronomy disaster last night.

I'd forgotten I had my favourite pair of binos sitting on the edge of my dobson base. In the wee hours of this morning when I picked up the dob base to take it inside I got right across the back lawn, on to the concrete path, before my binos decided to leap to their doom.

*CRASH**CLINK**RATTLE*

I swore.

R.I.P. (Rest in Pieces) binos.

I'd had them for more than 10 years. They were great binos.

oh no poor binos well i guess its time you bought yourself a belated xmas present

Jen · #33 05-01-2009, 04:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TrevorW

Can I come too

sure

GrahamL · #34 05-01-2009, 06:41 PM

Thats a shame

.. dob bases can be a magnet for problems .. My latest.. regards ye old fan to battery conection .. forgetting about the fan I pick up the mirror box and walk off tearing the wires off the back of the fan as the battery sits in the bottom of the rocker box .. twice in a row !!

Third time I gave it some forthought as I was lugging out the mirror box
though strangley while passing the wifes bedisde drawer a I noticed
a familar sound I couldn't quite place .. but didn't give it any thought... It was the slightly dangling fan wires that decided to catch themselves in the slightly open drawer and once again rip the wires off the back of the fan .. hatrick

At least the last time I was looking for the suckers ...though they still wern't there

Tinker · #35 08-01-2009, 02:45 PM

Had a disaster recently. Received a new EQ6 mount, never owned a GEM before, and hastily set it up to try it out with my refractor.

I was thinking this didnt take long to set up, I'll try a polar alignment!

Slewed the mount and bang, refractor upside down saying hello to the tripod legs.

You guessed it, forgot in my haste to add the big white heavy weights to the other end of the mount.

Broke the focusser, but after after a bit of fiddling it kind of works ok now. A good lesson learnt!

Jen · #36 08-01-2009, 04:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tinker

Had a disaster recently. Received a new EQ6 mount, never owned a GEM before, and hastily set it up to try it out with my refractor.

I was thinking this didnt take long to set up, I'll try a polar alignment!

Slewed the mount and bang, refractor upside down saying hello to the tripod legs.

You guessed it, forgot in my haste to add the big white heavy weights to the other end of the mount.

Broke the focusser, but after after a bit of fiddling it kind of works ok now. A good lesson learnt!

Tinker i felt your pain when i read that awwwwwww but one day when i get a EQ6 mount i will remember that thanks cheers

Kevnool (Kev) · #37 11-01-2009, 06:29 PM

Not much reallt except drive out to an observing site.
Set up , collimate , 2 star alignment then i,ll think about looking into the galactic centre and no i,ll give that a miss as i didnt put the step ladder in to get to the eyepiece at zenith.Ohh well no observations around zenith.
Cheers Kev.