Well on the weekend i managed to polar align my scope for the first time
But it took me neally 4 hours to get it right (yep im a persistant little bugger it wasnt going to beat me)
Anyway after neally four hours of continuously watching the star dift to the South even when i turned the scope totally the other way
Ron says to me Jen have you connected it up to the RA I was like yeah i can hear it clicking etc..... then i locked at where the screw needs to be tightend and sure enough Jen didnt tighten it at all DOH!!!!!!!!!!!! and a few words did come out of my mouth
Anyway once i tightened up the screw BAM!!! i had it polar aligned in 5 minutes yeehhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaa Jen takes note next time to tighten up that little bugger (i wont do that again)
Well my bigges Doh moment was driving 6hrs to Mallacoota with my new boat in tow and stoping at a servo tired and weary, i topped boat up with $40 of fuel, while i was chatting to servo attendant i realised i was filling up the hull with petrol and not the tank as the rod holder sits right next to the petrol tank inlet i had the hose poked in the rod holder, after swearing for about five minutes i spent the next 30 mins draining fresh petrol out of the bungs in the back, man i felt like a total knob, and the boat stunk high of petrol for the whole week...
My biggest doh moment was marvelling at a new nebula I accidentally found one night. I spent a few minutes checking it out then showed it to my friends. Then I noticed it followed me as I moved the scope around.
I looked into the tube... It wasn't a nebula, it was a hair on the mirror!
I had a similar experience with a dark edge growing from one side of the field in my subs first time I used a wide field Pentax lens on my QHY8. At first I didn't worry too much because I thought I was tracking closer to my house roof and that was the gutter as the field was very wide but after a little while the shadow developed some interesting branches looking patterns. My sensor was icing up.
Top this.... I had just finished my final Uni exam after 4 years of horror, came home and fell on my face for 20 hours sleep. Got up noon the next day, staggered into the bathroom, looked in the mirror and decided to brush my teeth.
After 10 minutes of wondering why the friggin toothpaste was not frothing up, I glanced at the tube in my other hand and realised it was Deep Heat..... vomited, mouth wash, toothpaste on a new brush for 20 minutes.... 20 more hours sleep with the sound of the ex laughing her proverbial off haunting me
I glanced at the tube in my other hand and realised it was Deep Heat
i didnt think I did any DOH things, but my family would disagree, but I did do same thing as Rom, when overseas last year. Brushing my teeth and wondering why the yuk taste/not frothing up - easy to do, really!! Took this pic in Florence after I did the deed.
Havent read too much of this thread, but the last few have been very funny so may have to have a peek.
Love the petrol one Stuart, and hair on the mirror Dennis.
Was looking up my details to check if I could get a better price on my CTP insurance and had my Drivers License out and saw that it had expired on my birthday Nov 21 I had been driving for 2 months with no license
This turned out to be an expensive D'oh moment....
I'd just bought a 2x barlow and was using it with a 10mm eyepiece with my 8" dob. This was giving me a magnification of 240x and I was using it to look at the Moon, etc. Everything was fine, except I was troubled by the smudge in the middle of my field of view. I asked my sons and wife what they thought it was but all 3 said they couldn't see any smudge. "The smudge there, right in the middle!!!"
"Sorry dad, no smudge...."
What would they know!!
The next day I was determined to clean the smudge that I only saw using the 10mm with the 2x barlow. I put the two together and looked at a white wall. There it is!! "I can see you wascally smudge!!"
I cleaned both the eyepiece and the barlow, joined them together, looked at the wall and the smudge was still there. So which component had the smudge - eyepiece or barlow? I rotated the eyepiece but the smudge did not move. OK, it must be on the barlow. Unfortunately, when I rotated the barlow the smudge still did not move! Then it dawned on me. There was only one place left it could be...
So after my two cataract operations (at a young age I might add!), I can now see clearly and I no longer have a smudge visible when using high magnifications!!
I can tell you it was very frustrating! The problem was only visible at high magnification because the light was passing only through the cataract and not around the sides as with the lower magnification eyepieces.
Galaxies, nebulae - I've seen them all! If only they'd existed....
I have "chased" a few unidentified spots and "shadows" when looking at Jupiter and Saturn, until I realised they were "floaters" - little hairs and specks within my eyes like you see when you look at a blank blue sky and see the spots falling away when you look at them.
They are a bugger when you are looking at something bright. I reckon I must have more than 100 at last count. Probably from my brothers chucking sand in my eyes 30 years ago on holidays, dunno.
Probably from my brothers chucking sand in my eyes 30 years ago on holidays, dunno.
These are actually imperfections in the eye "gel" (Vitreous Humour) that cast shadows depicting squickly lines / specks. So I wouldnt blame your brothers yet . Pretty normal unless you get a sudden increase in number, in which case you should get them checked.
Note Disclaimer - I am not a medical doctor! This is general information and not medical advice
Mine "doh" moment was cleaning the mirror of first Newt scope.
Even though it was a 4 1/2", it was pride and joy.
It did everything to take care of it, especially when I rubbed off the coating. when I was lightly cleaning it. I was only a teen, and thought the coating on the primary mirror was a little tougher.
$60 and 2 months later, ahhh bliss, only for the scope to be burnt in a fire a few years later. Ahhhhhhh.
Leaving glen c one night to travel home I took the wrong turn at the end
of his street.. I did notice two other cars in the posse.. heading away from me which seemed odd , I thought one of them had got ot wrong..I blissfully drove for 20 minutes convincing myself the whlole way I was on the right road ( despite it looking pretty differant to how I remembered it.) only realised when I drove past the one I was sposed to be on.
More recently in a hurry to get back to my scope launched my shin into a fair sized slab of silky oak I'd perched on a besser brick to feed my wild ducks that come and visit .. and while still staggering about from the blow with the blood a flowin .. stumbled into there water dish ( a large bowl).. which I'd also put there.. and cataputed 4 ltrs of water all over myself as I fell to the ground
Leaving glen c one night to travel home I took the wrong turn at the end
of his street and blissfully drove for 20 minutes convincing myself the whlole way I was on the right road ( despite it looking pretty differant to how I remembered it.)
More recently in a hurry to get back to my scope launched my shin into a fair sized slab of silky oak I'd perched on a besser brick to feed my wild ducks that come and visit .. and while still staggering about from the blow with the blood a flowin .. stumbled into there water dish ( a large bowl).. which I'd also put there.. and cataputed 4 ltrs of water all over myself as I fell to the ground
(yep im a persistant little bugger it wasnt going to beat me) 
of wondering why the friggin toothpaste was not frothing up, I glanced at the tube in my other hand and realised it was Deep Heat..... vomited, mouth wash, toothpaste on a new brush for 20 minutes.... 20 more hours sleep with the sound of the ex laughing her proverbial off haunting me 
very funny stories hehehhehehe 
