Your biggest DoH!!?? moment- You know you've had one.

[AlexN]

1 - driving 300km to a dark site to find I've left my 12v power box at home.
2 - Forgetting to plug the guide lead into the mount, and fighting with PHD for over an hour because it fails to calibrate..
3 - Not refocusing frequently enough and losing 2.5hrs data because of it (happens frequently..)

[lacad01 (Adam)]

Setting up in the dark, aligned to an object ok, appeared in finder ok, looked through eye piece - nothing, black. I thought, "Don't tell me I've dewed up so quickly already"....scratching my head, maybe I haven't moved the focusser out far enough...still nothin...
<<Doh!>>, I hadn't taken the main dust cover off the front of the scope

[Darth Wader (Wade)]

Set up the scope one afternoon & aligned the finder almost perfectly. Not long after darkness fell I bumped the finder WAY out of alignment. Needless to say it was quite difficult trying to find anything properly so I got really angry and packed up after about an hour. Good viewing conditions otherwise so I was particularly annoyed.

Cheers
Wade

[Lumen Miner (Mitchell)]

Thanks people, in admitting our own short comings, we encourage others whom have yet to experience, such abnormalities in the time continum of the universe. Moments of total confusion.

[AlexN]

Oh, taking 15x5minute dark frames then remembering that I had shot 10 minute exposures... That was a D'Oh! moment too...

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

I've posted this here before;

I packed up the car with the 5 inch scope, the tripod, power cables, food, gear etc and drove 65km to Linden on a REALLY clear night. I got there, opened up the car, unpacked the scope, set it up, aligned it and then realised that I had left my box with all my eyepieces in the garage at home.

I thought..."why dont I just use the binos", nope, they were in the box too. Then I thought...."I know, the webcam connected to the PC", nope, in the box too!
So, instead of packing up and heading an hour home with my tail between my legs, I realised that I had a 6 x 30 finder on the reflector, so I spent the next 90 mins looking at the Milky Way like a sad astronomical pirate. Yeaaarggghhhh!

Still, I had a lot of fun anyway.

I now keep a basic 15mm eyepiece in a bolt case in the car just in case I have another Homer moment.

Cheers

Chris

[Waxing_Gibbous (Peter)]

I had a flat spare tyre. I drove into the repair place. "We're pretty busy. About five hours" they said. I fretted and fussed about how I was going to go about my busy day without the car. "Mate" the guy said, "You only have to leave the tyre!"
Seven years of Uni down the drain!!!

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Classic Peter! I bet you felt like a right fool.

Not blonde are you?

Cheers

Chris

[Calibos (Keith)]

Dob on EQ platform. Webcam in Dob. Webcam connected to laptop mounted on laptop stand attached to my EP case table. EP case table has wheels. Decide to move EP table a foot or two. Forget webcam cable is wrapped behind lid of EP case. Move table. Webcam cable pulls against EP case lid. EP case with about 1200 euros of EP's and accessories gets pulled off table and empties onto ground. Nearly pulls of 800 euro Laptop.Webcam cable and webcam very strong, nearly pulls 12" Dob off EQ platform which probably would have destroyed 1400 euro Dob and crushed the motors and electronics of a 700 euro EQ PLatform.

Very nearly destroyed the entirety of my Astro equipment and thousands of euros worth in one go.

Luckily the scope and EQ platform didn't take a tumble and the contents of the EP case although emptied on the grass suffered no ill effects.

Beat that!!

[Lumen Miner (Mitchell)]

Originally Posted by Calibos

Dob on EQ platform. Webcam in Dob. Webcam connected to laptop mounted on laptop stand attached to my EP case table. EP case table has wheels. Decide to move EP table a foot or two. Forget webcam cable is wrapped behind lid of EP case. Move table. Webcam cable pulls against EP case lid. EP case with about 1200 euros of EP's and accessories gets pulled off table and empties onto ground. Nearly pulls of 800 euro Laptop.Webcam cable and webcam very strong, nearly pulls 12" Dob off EQ platform which probably would have destroyed 1400 euro Dob and crushed the motors and electronics of a 700 euro EQ PLatform.

Very nearly destroyed the entirety of my Astro equipment and thousands of euros worth in one go.

Luckily the scope and EQ platform didn't take a tumble and the contents of the EP case although emptied on the grass suffered no ill effects.

Beat that!!

Oh!!!! That is EPiC!!!!


Almost lost the lot.....!
I can picture it all going, like dominoes....

[Calibos (Keith)]

LOL, those smilies are very accurate depictions of the faces of my observing buddies when this was happening

[ngcles]

Hi All,

I'll add mine to the list though they are not too dissimilar to some above and they just go to show that no matter how experienced you are or how much you seem to know about telescopes etc, blunders of a mind-boggling magnitude are still possible, nay inevitable at least sometimes.

Strangely enough, they almost always seem to happen to me when I'm at some sort of gathering where the public are standing around you and watching the "expert" at work ... which only makes things much worse.

First one was at a Sutherland Astronomical Society Open night about ten years ago. Having assembled my nearly new 31cm Newtonian 'scope for public viewing, the images it gave were horrendous. A queue of about five watched my every move to diagnose the problem.

I changed eyepieces, looked though other 'scopes to check seeing and generally did everything to try to find out what was wrong until I took the eyepiece out of the focuser and shone a light down the barrel to find -- the plastic re-sealable bag I kept over the secondary mirror to protect it while being transported was still over the secondary mirror. Once removed the 'scope gave perfect images.

Second one was similar but even more stupid. I was at a huge public open night at Sydney Observatory about 3 years ago. After a request I took the Argus Panoptes (46cm -- see sig block) for the public to view Saturn which was near opposition.

A small crowd and some staff watched the twenty-odd minutes as I assembled, tweaked, collimated etc etc. With everything in apparent readiness I inserted the 9mm T1 Nagler (a 1 1/4" eyepiece with a 2" skirt) into the focuser and there was Saturn, somewhat fainter than normal, slightly yellowish and pretty fuzzy -- a horrible image. So away I went checking and re-checking everything in sight for nearly a half hour. Collimating, re-collimating, checking the secondary, the this, the that ... nothing seemed to work

And ... yeeesss, I did check to see if the plastic bag was over the secondary mirror -- no, after the experience above I'd moved to an opaque white draw-string cotton bag so that wasn't the problem. At the point of despair I finally pulled the 9mm Nagler out and found ...

... the clear/translucent plastic dust cap over the 1 1/4" field lens at the bottom of the eyepiece was still firmly in place.



What a dope.

Normal service was resumed in a matter of seconds.


Best,

Les D

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

Laughed my head off at those ones Les, especially the secondary mirror one, I keep a leather drawstring bag over mine and wonder sometimes why my laser collimator "disappears" into the tube before I "DOH" myself and take it off the secondary.

Thanks for sharing. Yeaaaarrrrgh!

Chris

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Does it have to be Astronomy related? Finally realising that the girl @ work that I've been chasing for the past 9 months isn't interested in me, or at least that way. Call me thick, or slow...or both. Women...

Dave

[Lumen Miner (Mitchell)]

Originally Posted by dpastern

Does it have to be Astronomy related? Finally realising that the girl @ work that I've been chasing for the past 9 months isn't interested in me, or at least that way. Call me thick, or slow...or both. Women...

Dave

Chin up! Happens to the best of us!!

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Thanks Mitchell. Chins up, moving on. I like to think of it as she wasn't worthy of me, and not the other way around.

Dave

[kinetic (Steve)]

Originally Posted by dpastern

Thanks Mitchell. Chins up, moving on. I like to think of it as she wasn't worthy of me, and not the other way around.

Dave

It could have been your multiple chins Dave?

[Lumen Miner (Mitchell)]

Originally Posted by kinetic

It could have been your multiple chins Dave?

Sorry, that was so lame, but I just had too.

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Originally Posted by kinetic

It could have been your multiple chins Dave?

rofl, yes!!!! Being a bigger lad, I do have multiple chins, more to laugh at

Dave

[RobF (Rob)]

I think my best effort would be the Fri evening I spent soldering up my USB/TTL/RJ45 cable to get EQMOD working with my HEQ5Pro mount. Took me a couple of gos to get the wiring right, but it was working great guns in the end.

Next night is Sat night at Astroron's dark sky property 2 hrs drive away. After putting up the tent, etc and setting up the scope, get ready to polar align and find I've blown electronics in the mount the night before - the hand controller didn't work! I think I was almost crying.

Spent 2hrs trying to get EQMOD working without the instructions or any sort of controller (not even a mouse). The only thing I ended up pointing at all night was Saturn for a single 1min AVI file - not usually considered essential viewing at a dark sky site.

Mind you, on the bright side, at least EQMOD works ok whatever it was I did to the mount....sigh

Lesson learned - don't stuff around with gear just before a dark sky trip!......