Luck of the devil, or, take care when packing up!

[okiscopey (Mike)]

Gave the jolly old ETX an outing on Saturday evening to view the Venus/Saturn conjunction, check on Jupiter's progress to becoming a star, and rounded off the session by half-blinding myself (and a few interested locals) on the rising full moon. (Forgot the ND filter).

Now it was dark, windy and cold, and time to pack up and attend my 60th birthday dinner with friends. "Mustn't forget to put those away" I said to myself noticing the two Vixen LV's snuggled in the eyepiece holes of the tripod spreader thingey. Of course I immediately forgot about them while fussing around with other stuff.

The next job was to reduce the tripod to more reasonable dimensions for travel. So I upended it, collapsed the legs and transferred everything from the sports oval where I'd been observing to my vehicular apparatus parked on the nearby tarmac. Once on hard ground, I up-ended the tripod again to take off the spreader. Uurrkkk! There was one LV eyepiece just hanging there upside down, held only by the fact it was at a slight angle in its hole. Grabbed it quick smart ... phew!

But where was the other one? A ten-minute search in the grass around the observing site turned it up safe and sound. Was this the luck of the devil or what? They could both have ended up bouncing off the road!

There was a thread recently about 'silly things we've done' - this is just my modest contribution. I do have others!

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Yep, it makes the heart skip Mike!

Happy 60th mate

[Shawn]

Yes Happy Birthday...

Hers a similar one, after spending a nice afternoon reading by the sea, When I got back to the car I couldnt find my car keys, put my nice new $700 phone on top of my book on the roof of the car and rummaged thru my pockets,,, ye ha, no I hadnt lost them, no need yo go back and dig up the beach...First left hand turn out of the car park, I hear this scraping sound across the roof of the car, Crap Phone, nothing else to do but stick my hand out of the window... Well you you wouldnt believe it...I caught the book...

[astro_nutt]

And another best wishes to you on your birthday!!!..Phew!!!..I guess the birthday luck held true for your eyepieces on that occasion!!
Cheers!!