I'm sure many of you will enjoy this little ditty-
I regularly view in my driveway when I have limited time to pack up and travel to our observatory. Because I live in the city, I have constructed some light screens to block streetlights and passing car headlights. Due to a series of unfortunate events I had one of those Rube Goldberg moments. You know the ones where you start a ball rolling at one end and after a number of various contraptions it drops an ice cube into your drink glass or some such thing. Here's how it went for me. I have a LX200 14" fork mount that I have modified to accept various scopes with a G11 style saddle. This night I had my TEC 140 on it. Mistake number one. I had not anticipated any strong wind gusts that night so I had not run the ropes with tent stakes on the end to hold down the light screens so of course up came a puff just enough to push the screen into the dew shield of the TEC. Normally no big deal however this started the ball rolling. Mistake number two. I had not sufficiently tightened the dec. clutch knob which allowed the scope to swing up to about 70 deg. in elevation. Again no big deal except for mistake number 3. I had failed to properly tighten the saddle plate clamp knob which when suddenly tilted upward allowed the TEC to start sliding out of the saddle bracket. I reached for the scope and caught it with about a half inch to spare before it came completely out and I had a free falling apo on my hands. So far so good. I am managing to stay ahead of the ball until mistake number 4. I had just taken out my Nagler 31 and put in another eyepiece. I started to set the 31 on a tv tray I had set up next to me to hold various items, but I thought to myself that might not be such a good idea as I might accidentally bump into the flimsy tray and allow the nag. to fall to the concrete below. So now where to set it. Yes, up on the nice big flat area between the forks of the LX200 mount which is well protected and rigid from movement in case I bumped the tripod it would not budge. Ah yes, here comes the ice cube you say. As I grab the tilting and slipping scope thinking all is saved, I hear a distinct thud on the driveway at my feet. After thinking what the hell was that, it took only a few seconds for my mind to retrace my previous actions to realize the focuser end of the scope had cleared the fork base just enough to punt the Nagler off the mount almost like an extra point attempt right through the uprights. My immediate though after that was the irony of my wisdom of not placing the eyepiece on the tv tray to better protect it on the mount. The flagship of the fleet now set battered and bruised. The only good thing that happened was the Nagler survived optically having landed first on the chrome 2" sleeve forbidding it from ever holding filters again. That plus a fair amount of pavement rash to the black body as it rolled several feet more. The driveway did require patching however. 8O I now only allow myself to bring it out in the dark so as not to painfully remind myself of my cranial rectal insertion moment. I am sure at this point many of you are thinking that this man should not be allowed to be near high end astronomical equipment and are considering getting restraining orders before going to your next star party in the event I am there as well and not allow me within 50' of your site. I as well expect to be barred from the premises at NEAF after recounting this story.
DanL
I regularly view in my driveway when I have limited time to pack up and travel to our observatory. Because I live in the city, I have constructed some light screens to block streetlights and passing car headlights. Due to a series of unfortunate events I had one of those Rube Goldberg moments. You know the ones where you start a ball rolling at one end and after a number of various contraptions it drops an ice cube into your drink glass or some such thing. Here's how it went for me. I have a LX200 14" fork mount that I have modified to accept various scopes with a G11 style saddle. This night I had my TEC 140 on it. Mistake number one. I had not anticipated any strong wind gusts that night so I had not run the ropes with tent stakes on the end to hold down the light screens so of course up came a puff just enough to push the screen into the dew shield of the TEC. Normally no big deal however this started the ball rolling. Mistake number two. I had not sufficiently tightened the dec. clutch knob which allowed the scope to swing up to about 70 deg. in elevation. Again no big deal except for mistake number 3. I had failed to properly tighten the saddle plate clamp knob which when suddenly tilted upward allowed the TEC to start sliding out of the saddle bracket. I reached for the scope and caught it with about a half inch to spare before it came completely out and I had a free falling apo on my hands. So far so good. I am managing to stay ahead of the ball until mistake number 4. I had just taken out my Nagler 31 and put in another eyepiece. I started to set the 31 on a tv tray I had set up next to me to hold various items, but I thought to myself that might not be such a good idea as I might accidentally bump into the flimsy tray and allow the nag. to fall to the concrete below. So now where to set it. Yes, up on the nice big flat area between the forks of the LX200 mount which is well protected and rigid from movement in case I bumped the tripod it would not budge. Ah yes, here comes the ice cube you say. As I grab the tilting and slipping scope thinking all is saved, I hear a distinct thud on the driveway at my feet. After thinking what the hell was that, it took only a few seconds for my mind to retrace my previous actions to realize the focuser end of the scope had cleared the fork base just enough to punt the Nagler off the mount almost like an extra point attempt right through the uprights. My immediate though after that was the irony of my wisdom of not placing the eyepiece on the tv tray to better protect it on the mount. The flagship of the fleet now set battered and bruised. The only good thing that happened was the Nagler survived optically having landed first on the chrome 2" sleeve forbidding it from ever holding filters again. That plus a fair amount of pavement rash to the black body as it rolled several feet more. The driveway did require patching however. 8O I now only allow myself to bring it out in the dark so as not to painfully remind myself of my cranial rectal insertion moment. I am sure at this point many of you are thinking that this man should not be allowed to be near high end astronomical equipment and are considering getting restraining orders before going to your next star party in the event I am there as well and not allow me within 50' of your site. I as well expect to be barred from the premises at NEAF after recounting this story.
DanL
