Observing Horror Stories

Hi Every One,
Dont know if this has been done before, but has anyone got any stories they'd like to share that went horribly pear shaped,...ie telescope falling over, being robbed or assaulted(has this really happened to anyone?), handset blowing up or something. Might be interesting to hear and also serve as a guide of what to do and not do when observing alone.
Regards,
Henry

When I lived in San Jose, California I used to observe on Mt. Hamilton about 1/2 way up to Lick Observatory. Returning home after one session I passed a wild boar foraging at the side of the road about a mile from where I had been. I imagine he would have given me a wide berth (even outside the car), but it still gave me the shivers.

-- Jeff.

Worst that happened me was on the very first night I used my very first telescope it blew over! Thankfully it was a dob so the mirror didn't move far and apart from knocking out the collimation there was no real damage done. The sound of a falling telescope still haunts me though.

I learned a valuable lesson that night, gales + observing is a bad mix!

Bart.

I had built a 8.5 inch telescope. The new mirror I had ground, polished and figured to lambda/8. The OTA was an open truss and I just placed the new mirror into the cell and assumed I had secured it. The telescope was outside.

I was distracted by a telephone call, when I came back the OTA had tilted downwards due to imbalance in the mounting, the mirror had fallen out and smashed into pieces.

This was 3 months work of mirror making in my spare time.
A big lesson learnt.

Eamonn A

MPC J62
www.kingslandobservatory.com

Eamonn do you ever really recover fully from trauma like that?

Initially, I was so shocked and stunned that I actually denied it happened in the first few minutes. It took me a few months to recover.

I eventually made another mirror as a therapy.

A much earlier story, I remember as a teenager I made a 4 inch mirror. I got it aluminized and was very proud of it. I showed it to a friend of my parents whom came over to examine the mirror, only to maul the mirror surface by her fingers, saying what an wonderful reflection from the mirror. You can imagine how upset I was without screaming.

Eamonn A

MPC J62
www.kingslandobservatory