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David Pavlich
Postmaster
Reged: 05/18/05
Posts: 8633
Loc: Mandeville, LA USA 30.22 X 90....
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The most often asked question I get, expecially if I've set up my CGE/SC is "how much does that cost?".
And the other that will invariably come up is, as Andrew said earier, "that isn't Saturn, that's a picture, isn't it?". I actually had to slew my scope around for a lady to look at. She refused to believe me.
David
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Proud Member; PAS NOLA,
"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research..."
A. Einstein
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Sky_Watcher2007
easily amused
Reged: 07/24/06
Posts: 174
Loc: Belleville, IL
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Quote:
Had my first "question" last night.
I was setup in the front yard last night and my neighbor came out and said "Are you looking at the sky?" I stepped back from the Ep and stared at her for a second then I looked at the scope and then back at her and said "no". She got a puzzled look on her face and walked back in her house. I started laughing so hard I had to call it quits for the night.
And I thought my neighbor was clueless.... yours has mine beat! 
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Rhonda~
C9.25 ASGT SCT
Hardin Optical 6" Dob
Pentax 16 x 50 XCF Binoculars
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Ryus
sage
Reged: 01/23/08
Posts: 200
Loc: Near Washington DC, Northern V...
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I'm sitting outside in the day using my PST and have two neighbors (each on a separate occasion) stop to ask what I'm looking at. I told the first the sun. They flipped and would not shut up about the risks of going blind. I explained that this scope dims the light so I won't go blind. In the end I had to pull a solar observing book out of my supply bag to convince them that I was safe.
Not wanting to go through that again a week later I say "I'm looking at just what's out."
They stopped to think of something smart to say and finally pick something to say to my evasion.
They told me "That I once had a friend with a scope bigger then your's."
I thinking bigger then a PST, really? Never would have guess that.
Instead of saying that, I say "Oh! You must mean one of those white ones!"
They say "Yep, they had three of them!"
They go on and on about a million times magnification. That when I stopped listening but they went on...
Well then the conversation ended I go to look back through my PST and next thing I know I'm leaping in shock of them screeming "What type of Idiot astronomer are you!?! You can't look at the sun!"
Even with my heart racing at the unexpectedness of it, I was laughing by apparently being "Saved" by my hero. Then I had to explain it to them too, it ended with me pulling out the same book followed by a "can I look"?
From then on I just say "Here have a look and see." (I did have to Idiot "proof" my set up before I did that).
Upon thinking about it I'm glad that both of them knew that looking at the sun is dangerous.
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Clear skies,
Jonathan
Started amateur astronomy summer 2005.
8x30, 8.5x44, 7x50, & 9x63 (main) binoculars.
5.1" reflector; Coronado PST; &
4" refractor (with optional Solar Filter) (use all equally).
Currently planning on bigger scope (5"-6" refractor, 10" Dob (most likely), or 8" SCT (second most likely)).
Eyepieces: Meade 5000 UWA, Meade 4000 Plossls, TBM Planetary, and CEMAX for PST.
Barlow: TeleVue Powermate 2.5x, CEMAX 2x, and Meade #126 2x.
And a Binoviewer.
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Jerry Moore
sage
Reged: 05/23/06
Posts: 311
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Yes, I know what you mean about the looks you get when solar observing. Our group does this once a month at our space museum. When we stop people before entering the museum to ask if they'd like to take a look at the sun, we get the weirdest "You must be a freakin' nut" looks.
ROFLMAO
Jerry
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perfessor
sage
Reged: 12/30/07
Posts: 499
Loc: Northern Illinois
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Regarding showing the sun: I saw a film about John Dobson, he had made an elegant solar scope with the sonotube cut at 45 degrees, and a plate of welding glass covering the front. No secondary per se, just the back of the glass. He was showing people at a state park, getting ooohs and ahhhs.
"Thank You for showing me that!" one person exclaimed.
"Oh, don't thank me," said Dobson. "It's your sun."
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Tom
"Don't always know what I'm talkin about"
8" f/7
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Snaproll
Post Laureate
Reged: 02/20/04
Posts: 3824
Loc: Wisconsin
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One thing I have is an 8' Exploradome on a trailer. It tilts up and lays on the trailer, and looks pretty close to an ICBM warhead. Well, you can imagine all the comments I've gotten. "Gee, ever get a call from Homeland Security?", that kind of thing. Everytime I stop for gas, "Excuse me, but what is that?"
Well, I was coming back from a star party and pulled into a burger place for lunch. I get out of the truck and as I'm walking in, this kid, about 20 comes over and good naturedly says, "What is that?" After the hundreth time of being asked I decided to joke with him a little bit, I gave him one of those, 'did you just grow a third eye or something looks' (the guy knew I was kidding) and said, "It's an observatory, haven't you ever seen one before?" Absolutely without missing a beat, the kid comes back with, "Sure, just never one that smaaaaaaaalllll". We both laughed, I then explained what is was, why someone has one, yada, yada, but the whole rest of the ride home I just chuckled, it made my day.
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-Jim-
Happiness is a clear sky and a Denk II
old AP images and some new C14 Hyperstar images
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fastrudy
sage
Reged: 04/09/06
Posts: 230
Loc: Long Island, NY
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"why don't we just go at night"?
Believe it or not, that is exactly what Carl Sagan proposed to do!! He wanted to get a probe very close to the sun by sneaking up to it in the shadow of an asteroid or comet.
Whenever somebody asks me "What sign were you born under?" I always reply, "I don't know, but I was conceived under "No parking after dusk.".
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"The authorities are not interested in Truth, merely in Authority"
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AstroRealtor
professor emeritus
Reged: 03/26/08
Posts: 539
Loc: Terra Firma
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Then there was the guy who asked what toilet paper and the Star Ship Enterprise have in common? I shrugged  Then he said they both circle Uranus searching for Kling-ons 
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Clear Skies, Jim
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Discovering: Messier objects, Deep sky treasures, NGCs, Double stars, & Nebulae of all kinds.
Televue 85 "Polaris" Mount
Custom Crafted Newtonian Dob 8" f7 w/Feathertouch
Celestron Cometron Reflector 114mm f8
Zeiss Diafun 8 X 30 Binos
Zeiss 10 X 56 Binos
 Aldrich Astronomical Society
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janehoustonjones
sage
Reged: 10/21/07
Posts: 400
Loc: 34 N 118 W, 637.0 feet
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Quote:
Regarding showing the sun: I saw a film about John Dobson, he had made an elegant solar scope with the sonotube cut at 45 degrees, and a plate of welding glass covering the front. No secondary per se, just the back of the glass. He was showing people at a state park, getting ooohs and ahhhs.
"Thank You for showing me that!" one person exclaimed.
"Oh, don't thank me," said Dobson. "It's your sun."
I made one of these Dobsonian Solar scopes in John's class back in 1985. Actually a friend made the mount and I just ground the mirror. The welding glass sits inside the focuser hole. The front is parallel plate glass aluminized on the inside. The mirror is unaluminized. Love it! http://www.whiteoaks.com/sketches/janesketch2.html
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Jane Houston Jones
New! What's Up Podcast for November (The Crab Nebula)
New NASA web feature: Hunting Leonids
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ForgottenMObject
Post Laureate
Reged: 09/11/04
Posts: 3606
Loc: Maryland, US
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Hmm... back when I started college, the freshmen engineers all had to take a term of English as part of some cross-vocational study or some such silliness. You haven't suffered until you've heard engineers attempt to write poetry or had a paper on the chemical composition of the universe and how it relates to stellar evolution graded by somebody who probably still thinks the sun goes around the Earth.
Anyway, the teacher for this class was a real prize: unable to tell time with a watch, etc. Well, we start talking about hobbies or something as part of some freshman "ice-breaking" session, and I mention astronomy.
Big mistake: she assumes I am interested in astrology. Nope, I explain to her the difference, and she STILL doesn't believe me?! It actually degenerated to the point that she wouldn't even believe the dictionary definitions of the two words. Her last words on the subject where basically that "she believes that they are the same thing, but maybe she's the only one who believes that." Ummm.. yep!
In the end, I got an A in that class either because she had no idea what I was talking about half the time or because she feared I'd somehow change her future with my vast understanding of astrology, mystical signs, etc. Hehehehe...
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Matthew
IDA member
XT8i, 10x50 binoculars, lots of eyepieces
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Protheus
Vaguely offended
Reged: 09/01/07
Posts: 5065
Loc: Illinois, US
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Quote:
Her last words on the subject where basically that "she believes that they are the same thing, but maybe she's the only one who believes that." Ummm.. yep!
You'd be amazed how wide-spread that idea was back in the day -- you know, a few centuries ago...
Chris
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"To tread the sharp edge of a sword;
to run on smooth-frozen ice,
one needs no footsteps to follow..."
"Well, people sometimes ask me 'how did you get involved in astronomy?' I said 'I got born, what's your problem?'" -- John Dobson
"In discussing the large-scale structure of the cosmos, astronomers sometimes say that space is curved, or that the universe is finite but unbounded. Whatever are they talking about?" -- Carl Sagan
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Skylook123
Post Laureate
Reged: 04/30/05
Posts: 4780
Loc: Tucson, AZ
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It was a very quiet night a few years ago at the Grand Canyon Star Party. It's a fantastic week of outreach with public visitors and 50-80 amateur astronomers showing off sky candy. Set up is either in the main parking area for Yavapai Observing Station, or down in a lower area called The Pit. In The Pit, you can leave your scope set up for the whole week, but the visitor traffic is, at best, 10% of the flow in the upper lot.
So there we were, about a dozen of us astronomers in the Pit with maybe 30 visitors ambling through and sampling the views. Very quiet. I've got my 18" on The Ring. I help a 7 year old up the ladder to view. Still dead silence. Suddenly this little guy shouts out "Holy S***, Mom, it's a g** d*** Cheerio."
After 15 years of outreaches, that one really sticks with me!
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Jim
A Bad Night With A Telescope
Beats A Good Night Doing Anything Else
Tectron 18" Truss Dob/Sky Commander DSCs, "Derrick"
Meade 10" LX-5 SCT/Atlas-G "Ol' Blue Eye"
Orion 90mm refractor,
Meade 10" Starfinder Newt/JMI NGCMax DSCs,
Celestron 10x50 Ultima Pro
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Sky_Watcher2007
easily amused
Reged: 07/24/06
Posts: 174
Loc: Belleville, IL
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Quote:
Suddenly this little guy shouts out "Holy S***, Mom, it's a g** d*** Cheerio."
Now this gives new meaning to the "Milky Way" as well! 
I'll never be able to look at either without thinking of this thread and chuckling.....
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Rhonda~
C9.25 ASGT SCT
Hardin Optical 6" Dob
Pentax 16 x 50 XCF Binoculars
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David Culp
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 04/10/07
Posts: 1177
Loc: Carrollton, TX
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Another funny comment made by someone I know.
Back when I was kid (well around 19 or so). I was working my way through college at a local convenience store in the rural town I lived in. Some of the other employees would give me a hard time (all in fun) about my astronomy habit.
One night, one of the employees was asking me if I was taking the scope out when I got home. I told her I was and I was going to be observing Jupiter.
She made a bit of a smart remark then asked where to find Jupiter. I told her it would be the really bright object in the west after sun down - the brightest object in the sky in that part of the sky.
After it got dark Janna comes running in, she was very excited shouting "I see it, I see it, I see Jupiter!!" I was pretty darn proud of myself, maybe I just made another astronomer. So, I go out side and she’s excited and points "There it is, there it is!!!
Now, what I am about to tell you is the truth, not embellished, I’m not making this up, I’m not even stretching the truth a little.
I simply hung my head and said "No Janna, that’s not Jupiter, that's the moon."
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Atoka, Ok
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Sky_Watcher2007
easily amused
Reged: 07/24/06
Posts: 174
Loc: Belleville, IL
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oh my!  
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Rhonda~
C9.25 ASGT SCT
Hardin Optical 6" Dob
Pentax 16 x 50 XCF Binoculars
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Ryus
sage
Reged: 01/23/08
Posts: 200
Loc: Near Washington DC, Northern V...
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Quote:
I simply hung my head and said "No Janna, that’s not Jupiter, that's the moon."
We can't win.  There's too many DUMB people. To make it worse I think they choose to be that way.
However I choose to keep fighting. 
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Clear skies,
Jonathan
Started amateur astronomy summer 2005.
8x30, 8.5x44, 7x50, & 9x63 (main) binoculars.
5.1" reflector; Coronado PST; &
4" refractor (with optional Solar Filter) (use all equally).
Currently planning on bigger scope (5"-6" refractor, 10" Dob (most likely), or 8" SCT (second most likely)).
Eyepieces: Meade 5000 UWA, Meade 4000 Plossls, TBM Planetary, and CEMAX for PST.
Barlow: TeleVue Powermate 2.5x, CEMAX 2x, and Meade #126 2x.
And a Binoviewer.
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