When telescopes bite!

[LewisM]

I am sure we all have veteran stories of rabid telescope attacks, crushing counterweights, or shocking power cords...


My latest was 2 nights ago. Was aligning my Vixen Fl102, and had just slewed to Betelgeuse as one of the alignment stars. Was bent over the laptop, using my camera capture software with crosshair as my "illuminated reticle", when stupid me forgot that the telescope was behind me. Now, the dewshields on Vixens aren't lightweight aluminium.... needless to say I cared more about the scope and mount, before rectifying the blood coming from the back of my head

The other was a near miss a few months back.Sold an HEQ5 mount. Was getting the final counterweight out of th car - was in the original SW box with foam inserts - when the weight comes out, and very rapidly heads towards my right foot.Thankfully, it missed by a whisker, but I was wearing crocs at the time, so you can imagine the agony and probable broken foot bones that would have caused!

What war stories have you got?

[blink138 (Pat)]

satupidly decided to take couterweights off before the OTA!
result smashed g11 gearbox!
what a smeg head!
pat

[technofetishism (Nick)]

had to get my upper lip glued back together after a tube ring smacked me in the face as the scope rolled down my arms. cm lower and id probably of smashed a tooth.

[LewisM]

Originally Posted by blink138

satupidly decided to take couterweights off before the OTA!
result smashed g11 gearbox!
what a smeg head!
pat

That sounds expensive!

[MortonH]

Years ago I had a Celestron C8 with heavy duty wedge & tripod. One night I was observing in my parents' yard and I decided to move the scope to view some other objects. Lifted the whole thing up and one of the tripod legs fell off! Ended up with a bit of back strain before someone came to help but the scope survived intact.

[brian nordstrom (As avatar)]

I remember those tripods , sturdy but .......
.. a handful . .
Brian.

Originally Posted by MortonH

Years ago I had a Celestron C8 with heavy duty wedge & tripod. One night I was observing in my parents' yard and I decided to move the scope to view some other objects. Lifted the whole thing up and one of the tripod legs fell off! Ended up with a bit of back strain before someone came to help but the scope survived intact.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

I lifted and pressed my 12"LX200GPS OTA+Forks (plus finder and losmandy piggyback bracket) overhead for 10 repetitions back in 2002 (just because I could)...and nothing got broken ...I consider that a war story ie Man vs Telescope ...that I imagine few could match ...including myself now

Mike

[astroron (Ron)]

Originally Posted by MortonH

Years ago I had a Celestron C8 with heavy duty wedge & tripod. One night I was observing in my parents' yard and I decided to move the scope to view some other objects. Lifted the whole thing up and one of the tripod legs fell off! Ended up with a bit of back strain before someone came to help but the scope survived intact.

Happened to me as well,20 years ago, but no back strain
I still bare the after mark of a Nagler 13mm type 1 dropping out of my Celestron SCT from a hight of about 1meter and landing on my bare foot and smashing one of my toes, Wow the pain but no damage to the eyepiece
Cheers

[mental4astro (Alexander)]

Setting up a C9.5 in the dark at a school star party, had the OTA in my arms to place it on the wedge, overbalanced & the edge of the fork tyne cracked me in the brow. Blood gushing out, pouring down the side of my face, scrambling to recompose myself & finish setting up, surrounded by kids. Cool! Still got the scar.

[Stardrifter_WA]

Apart from dropping my Ethos 21mm (which fortunately only resulted in a minor scratch...phewww) I really haven't had major incidents with my "personal gear".

However, when I was working at Perth Observatory one night I was in the middle of an photometry observing run (on a comet) when I went to reposition the dome onto a standard star (to take a reading) the dome stopped rotating, so I moved it back a bit, as I thought it was stuck slightly, and then tried to move it forward again. It only moved a short distance and stopped again. Damn, I though, what is going on here, until I looked down and saw "hydraulic oil" running across the floor. The dome rotation was operated by hydraulic motors due to its mass and the tank was located in a side room in the dome. Anyway the hydraulic hose burst at the tank and whilst trying to move the dome, I stupidly pumped the tank nearly dry (about 50 litres of oil).

Now, I can't remember how many steps there were going up to the dome of the 24", but it was a lot. I had to find a bucket and carry sand up to the dome to contain the oil. After many trips up and down the stairs, I was totally knackered, and I mean totally. After getting my breath back I proceeded to clean the oil up and it took about six hours, as I then had to carry many bucket fulls of oil back down from the dome.

It was my worst night of observing ever, that wasn't related to cloud. In fact it was a crisp cold night with excellent transparency. Damn it. I had my "moon" boots and, and still have them, and they are well and truly well oiled now.

The observatory has some basic sleeping quarters at the base of the dome, so I just went to sleep there as I was totally exhausted.

I had other incidents at the observatory, related to equipment failure, but that was, by far, the worst. I will never forget that night!

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Twice I've forgotten to put the counter weight on the mount, only to slew and BANG. my poor poor finderscope copped the full brunt of it each time.

[Meru (Michael)]

Once I added too much weight (One too many telescopes) onto on my EQ5. I was making latitude adjustments and the adjustment screws got really tight. In my infinite wisdom I decided to add more force.

Moments later one of the two adjustment screws loosened, and the whole (Top heavy) mount almost flipped backwards towards North, with the front legs lifting up. Luckily I was able 'hug' whole thing before it continued backwards onto the concrete... though the blood on my head probably disagrees on this 'luck'!

[TrevorW]

Dropped an ED80, forgot to do up the dovetail screws (scratches only no real damage)

Dropped a counter weight just missing my foot (about twice)

[TechnoViking (James)]

My Telescope hurt me before i even unpacked it from the origional box! I walked past it a little too close with bare feet, I caught the corner of the box and fractured my little toe .
The second effort was putting the colourbond on the roll off roof, I left my electric drill on the roof cap, while testing the rolling function the drill fell from the roof barely missing my head and landing bounced off sholder hitting the fibro board putting a large hole in it, .. I said a few words that i wont repeat on this forum - and my sholder was blueberry coloured for weeks.
Last but not least, attaching my OTA to the mount.. the dovetail clap is terribly designed and catches when tightening, I thought i had tightened it as hard as i could i didnt realise that the weight from the ota was preventing me tightening it completely, I let off the clutch so i could balance the OTA and it slipped, and THANK GOODNESS i remembered to screw in the saftey screws, which worked like a charm and saved my scope from certain distruction, although the impact did bend the saftey screw 30 degrees to the front.

hopefully thats all the bad luck i will encounter ... touch wood

[ourkind (Carlos)]

almost lost a toe to a counter weight, missed it by mm's but touch wood nothing yet!