What event? Your observing night is going so nice; lots of DSOs logged, etc., then what happens that suddenly ends your fun, OTHER THAN weather or sky codition changes?

With me, it's almost always sudden back fatigue pain, followed by neighboor's flood lights coming on for no reason. Otherwise, I'm good for a few hours. What suddenly brings your night of pleasure and fun to an abrupt end the most? A curious Mr Q

My mom yelling that it's time for bed.

__________________
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

My neighbors seem to have the habit of letting their dogs out, and therefore turning on their flood lights, when I'm observing. Its quite aggravating to be suddenly blinded by a bright flash.

How about turning to go back to the table with the star charts, eyepieces etc. and running right into the antlers of a large buck during rut. He seemed to think I was a threat to his parenthood efforts. It was all I could do to get the scope into the shed and back up the stairs. Coat was torn beyond repair but the ribs were only bruised. Sure didn't feel like it. They killed me for several weeks after that. I was just glad I was wearing a thick, wool filled, winter coat even if it was only late October. If it had been a warmer night the outcome may have been a lot worse. A mad buck isn't something you want to deal with.

Then there was the night I stepped on a skunk's head... That didn't end my session however as I took off running the opposite way his tail was pointed. He never sprayed and was gone when I got up nerve to return and continue.

Another night a I heard a sound I didn't recognize. I should have but wasn't really paying attention. Suddenly a huge aspen was falling my direction. I took off running. Fortunately it was about 10 feet shorter than the distance from the trunk to my scope. But it did send branches and leaves everywhere so you couldn't walk safely at night so I packed it in and left the beaver to his "dinner".

Then there was the night a sparrow flew into my mouth. Guess I talk too much. Again, it didn't stop the viewing just gave the rest of the guys a big laugh.

Another time I took a neighbor single mother and her daughter and boyfriend out to our viewing site so the girl could learn constellations and see a few major objects needed for some project. We got out of the car just as a pack of coyotes were passing by. We never saw them but they were likely just on the other side of a tree line, about 30 feet away. They howled and yipped in protest of having been invaded. Mom and daughter wouldn't leave the car after that. Boyfriend and I looked at a few things while the women cowered in the car. When it was obvious they'd not get out we headed home again.

Rick

Having the observatory (college, fourth floor of the science hall) full of cops, with guns drawn!
Mind you, I had:
1) Permission from the head of the department.
2) My own key to the building.
3) My own key to the observatory.

I had taken my younger brother and his friend along for company and some star gazing. I was taking an exposure of M81 and M82 when suddenly the door bangs open and there are a dozen police officers in the room with pistols and shotguns! seems that some busy body neighbor noticed that the dome was open and had called the cops.

The police arrived thinking that they might catch some vandals, but all they found was a student working on his semester project and two scared junior high students. After convincing them that we were no danger, I closed the shutter on the ruined exposure (did I mention that they all had 6 cell flashlights and had waved them all over the place?) and gave them a short tour of the observatory. I had to take the two younger ones home, so we called it a night

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Being about 45 minutes to the nearest town-like place and listening a pack of coyotes off to the east yip all night wasn't the problem. At about 2:30 in the morning the once off to the east started to answer. That was the same night I got a little hypothermic, so it was probably good I left when I did.

One night my friend and his GF came out with My GF and me for the Perseid shower. It was totally overcast so we were standing around talking, about 10 feet apart. My friend looked over and asked if heard something. I asked if what he heard was between us about head high. He said it was, then we heard it again.

We stood there for a bit and started to see little white flashed zipping around us; maybe a dozen or so. When we finally got the light on them we could see they were little, white bats. Wingspan looked to be less than 5 inches, but they were so fast it was impossible to tell for sure. The women were locked in the van at this point. No point in staying then.

__________________
A Nerd can figure out how long it will take the original Enterprise traveling at warp 6.5 to travel from Regulus to Antares.
A Geek will think he can use that to pick up a girl in a bar.
A Dork knows he can't pick up the girl with it, but will hang around for hours anyway, just in case she asks.
She might. You never know.

That pesky star that's just too close to let us see the rest of 'em!

Going off to relieve myself and walking back and knocking over my telescope, breaking the tripod.

Kaptain K's story reminds me of the time a cop interrupted my astrophotography session. Early one morning in 1986 I'd pulled into an abandoned rest area well off of the highway to set up to photography Halley's comet. It was atop a hill with a good SE exposure as the comet would be very low when dawn started in. A highway patrol car was already there. He was eating a 3 a.m. breakfast. He didn't mind that I used the spot. I was still setting up when he left. Halley rose and I'd just started the exposure when the cop returned. He was leading a parade of about 20 cars all with blinding headlights. The entrance was the same direction as Halley so the shot was a goner. Seems he found these cars blocking various county roads trying to find Halley and he knew where to take them so they didn't block the roads. Needless to say I never did get that photo but did show Halley to a heck of a lot of people.

On the other side of the cop issue a member of our club moved to the Washington DC area. He set up his Coulter 8" dob in a quiet park well south of DC. He was still fighting light pollution but it wasn't too bad to the south. He suddenly was hit by cops from every direction. Seems someone thought his Dob was a large mortar pointed at Washington DC, even though he was looking away from the city due to the light pollution. Cops forced him to move saying they didn't need any more false alarms. Not knowing where to move to that wouldn't cause the same problem he packed it in. He later learned that happened to other amateurs in the area as well.

Rick

Twilight usually.

The Illinois State Police still interrupt me on a regular basis.
But these days, instead of looking for a reason to arrest me,
they arrive expecting an impromptu star party.

I'm even offered free coffee and donuts.


SJS

I just had a great binocular session, where I found Gemini and Auriga for the first time ever and saw lots of objects I didn't know about before, all thanks to a book I got!
But when I came in, I think I was about halfway to frostbite.

__________________
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

Been there, done that! You're young. You'll live!

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

I was about 30 miles outside Arequipa, Peru in March '86 at about 10,000 feet, photographing Halley. A large wild dog had shown up about 10PM and hung out maybe 100 feet away. He slowly made a circle around us then moved in ten feet or so to make another circle. He was taking an hour or so to make each loop. Thrown rocks and yelling had no effect. By about 3AM we felt he was moving in for a kill so we packed up the car and took off.

I spent several nights closer to town, near the laser ranging station, and locals with machine guns came and stayed dusk to dawn to guard me from "bandits".

Wow! Thanks for the stories people. Hearing your accounts make mine seem so trivial. Sounds like this thread may tun into "who had the weirdest event". If so, cool but hope these stories are actual and not figments of someone's imagination. Keep them coming! Mr Q

Rick - Does that mean a bird n the mouth is worth two in the scope tube??

Yeah. I'll be back out tonight. After homework, that is.
My aunt just sent me a package saying a star in Pisces is named after me, as a birthday gift, but it's 12.9 magnitude and thus too dim to see with my binocs. :-(

__________________
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

Better anyway. They'd likely stay in the tube and leave some deposits on the mirror. Claw scratches on aluminum coating wouldn't be very good either.

Rick

So, your aunt got taken by The International Star Registry.

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Don't get me started on that topic. As a supervisor of a public observatory for 27 years the headaches and heartaches caused by those scoundrels about drove me mad. How do you tell the parents who lost their 6 year old to cancer and "bought" a star in her honor the truth? What do you say to those parents when they give you coordinates but no epoch (this was 1978 when we were between epochs so both were heavily used)? How do you deal with Joe Blow who insists on seeing his star? Then chews us out in front of the public for not knowing which star is "Joe Blow". I think observatories, planetariums etc. should file a class action suit against these guys for a piece of the profit since they expect us to show folks "their star" for free.

Our standard suggestion for honoring a deceased child is to donate a good astronomy book to their school library after consulting the librarian as to their needs. They always put a prominent insert in the front honoring the child. At least this makes a real difference that counts.

I saw a company in Russia going this one better, they were "selling" your name to entire galaxies! Hundred billion stars are better than one aren't they?

Next is it galaxy clusters then super clusters.

Rick

Cosmic Microwave Background is such ungainly title. For just one bILLLIOn dollars *pinky to mouth* I'll sent you certificate stating the name was officially changed to yours. Hurry, offer only good for the first 100 people.

*Official certificate not likely to be accepted by those Ivory Tower Dwellers with the IAU or anyone that has anything to do with astronomy in any way. But you'll know the Truth^TM.

(kidding. You know... joke)

__________________
A Nerd can figure out how long it will take the original Enterprise traveling at warp 6.5 to travel from Regulus to Antares.
A Geek will think he can use that to pick up a girl in a bar.
A Dork knows he can't pick up the girl with it, but will hang around for hours anyway, just in case she asks.
She might. You never know.

One of the spots I used to go was called SPOC. The Stansbury Park Observatory Complex. It's a condo complex with an observatory at one end. The police there will turn OFF their lights when they see you have a scope set up in the parking lot.