"Extreme" Astronomy!

I was thinking that with all the X games and Extreme sports we need to start
promoting the Extreme angle of the exciting amature astronomy. some ideas, as
I'm new and just encountering them anyway:
A- living on the edge, will it be cloudy tonight or clear, if so when!
B- getting hit by football field sprinklers at the local park at night.
C- having the local athorities swing by to check if your telescope is a high
powered rifle.
D- not polar aligning as you set up your telescope
E-knowing the light gathering capibility of your telescope and cheap optical
quality of your cheezy lenses but pushing the edge of the power magnification
anyway...
EXTREME ASTRONOMY!!! NOT FOR THE LIGHT HEARTED!

During a perfect moment of peace at 17 Sep 2003 15:13:13 GMT,
(Rabbidgerbal) interrupted with:

EXTREME ASTRONOMY!!! NOT FOR THE LIGHT HEARTED!

Base Jumping with a 10" Dob, at night of course.
Observing at 30,000 feet, in your pyjamas only.
Messier Marathon from a single basket ballon following the terminator.
VLBI using 2 web cams, in a deep ocean canyon.

During a perfect moment of peace at 17 Sep 2003 15:13:13 GMT,
(Rabbidgerbal) interrupted with:

EXTREME ASTRONOMY!!! NOT FOR THE LIGHT HEARTED!

Base Jumping with a 10" Dob, at night of course.
Observing at 30,000 feet, in your pyjamas only.
Messier Marathon from a single basket ballon following the terminator.
VLBI using 2 web cams, in a deep ocean canyon.

"Rabbidgerbal" wrote in message...
...

I was thinking that with all the X games and Extreme sports we need to start
promoting the Extreme angle of the exciting amature astronomy. some ideas, as
I'm new and just encountering them anyway:
A- living on the edge, will it be cloudy tonight or clear, if so when!
B- getting hit by football field sprinklers at the local park at night.
C- having the local athorities swing by to check if your telescope is a high
powered rifle.
D- not polar aligning as you set up your telescope
E-knowing the light gathering capibility of your telescope and cheap optical
quality of your cheezy lenses but pushing the edge of the power magnification
anyway...
EXTREME ASTRONOMY!!! NOT FOR THE LIGHT HEARTED!

Thanks, Rabbid Gerbal, for starting this extremely
nice thread!... hope you don't mind if i contribute a little?

Of course, there are all sorts of extremes in science...

there's Grote Reber and his great addition of radio
astronomy, uncovering great new ways to study the
sky...

then there's Hubble discovering that there's so much
more to the Universe than just the Milky Way Galaxy...

and even today people push to the extreme when they
look for new comets, or when they study supernovas in
galaxies far, far away...

and yet, my favorites are always the stories of the more
"down-to-earth" extremes. One of my own that i have
sometimes talked about begins on a night that i decided
to haul my li'l rinkydink Bushnell down to Manatee County
to get away from all those city lights and industrial noises...

Here in Florida, amateur astronomy can be hampered by
many things. Most often we get attacked by the Florida
State Bird? (the mosquito). But this particular night, things
got *extremely* out of hand.

There i was, spying on one of my favorite parts of the Milky
Way, the Andromeda stretch, seeing if i could make out
anything at all through the dust that covers our galaxy's
center. It was pitch black, so dark that i really couldn't see
my hand in front of my face.

Then i heard sort of a grrummphh sound behind me.
And my first thought was, 'hmm, maybe there *are* times
when you need a little light?' So i flicked on my flashlight.

About six or seven feet away was the snout of a huge
alligator. The gator was frozen, sort of mesmerized by the
light, i guess. And lucky for me, the gator was not used to
human cohabitation of its territory. In the next instant, the
twelve or fourteen footer shot off in another direction, never
to be seen again.

Thank heavens for Clorox!

happy days and...
starry starry nights!

--
Life without love is
A lamp with no oil,
Love without prejudice
A world with no soil,
A tool with no toil.

Paine Ellsworth

"Rabbidgerbal" wrote in message...
...

I was thinking that with all the X games and Extreme sports we need to start
promoting the Extreme angle of the exciting amature astronomy. some ideas, as
I'm new and just encountering them anyway:
A- living on the edge, will it be cloudy tonight or clear, if so when!
B- getting hit by football field sprinklers at the local park at night.
C- having the local athorities swing by to check if your telescope is a high
powered rifle.
D- not polar aligning as you set up your telescope
E-knowing the light gathering capibility of your telescope and cheap optical
quality of your cheezy lenses but pushing the edge of the power magnification
anyway...
EXTREME ASTRONOMY!!! NOT FOR THE LIGHT HEARTED!

Thanks, Rabbid Gerbal, for starting this extremely
nice thread!... hope you don't mind if i contribute a little?

Of course, there are all sorts of extremes in science...

there's Grote Reber and his great addition of radio
astronomy, uncovering great new ways to study the
sky...

then there's Hubble discovering that there's so much
more to the Universe than just the Milky Way Galaxy...

and even today people push to the extreme when they
look for new comets, or when they study supernovas in
galaxies far, far away...

and yet, my favorites are always the stories of the more
"down-to-earth" extremes. One of my own that i have
sometimes talked about begins on a night that i decided
to haul my li'l rinkydink Bushnell down to Manatee County
to get away from all those city lights and industrial noises...

Here in Florida, amateur astronomy can be hampered by
many things. Most often we get attacked by the Florida
State Bird? (the mosquito). But this particular night, things
got *extremely* out of hand.

There i was, spying on one of my favorite parts of the Milky
Way, the Andromeda stretch, seeing if i could make out
anything at all through the dust that covers our galaxy's
center. It was pitch black, so dark that i really couldn't see
my hand in front of my face.

Then i heard sort of a grrummphh sound behind me.
And my first thought was, 'hmm, maybe there *are* times
when you need a little light?' So i flicked on my flashlight.

About six or seven feet away was the snout of a huge
alligator. The gator was frozen, sort of mesmerized by the
light, i guess. And lucky for me, the gator was not used to
human cohabitation of its territory. In the next instant, the
twelve or fourteen footer shot off in another direction, never
to be seen again.

Thank heavens for Clorox!

happy days and...
starry starry nights!

--
Life without love is
A lamp with no oil,
Love without prejudice
A world with no soil,
A tool with no toil.

Paine Ellsworth