I am not sure if amateur astronomers are a "twisted" group of puppies or not but we have shared our dry and sarcastic
humour frequently on our newsgroup of choice (sci.astro.amateur). One particular thread that I and a handful of other
regular participants participated in reached a point that led AOL to ban the newsgroup from its list of available
newsgroups on its servers as a result of its filters picking up certain "keywords" that raised warning flags about the
suitability of the newsgroup for the general public. The interpretations provided below are my humble attempts to
"qualify" what we really meant (don't laugh too hard) and, as a result, any errors in these interpretations are solely
mine.
Of course, it would be a shame to let our contributions go to waste and, as a result, I have captured the complete list
and proudly present it below. Of course, the list has grown with the addition of new material which surfaces on an
ad-hoc basis on SAA. If you have anything additional that may be worthy of consideration and inclusion, please let me
know.
After reading the list of comments with obvious and intended interpretations, you will certainly be asking yourself what
the hell your mind was doing in the gutter in the first place?!
* | NEVER use anything coarser than 800-grit sandpaper or extra-fine steel wool on your mirror or corneas. | |
* |   | Do not spit polish your eyepieces immediately after eating. |
* |   | Use only unscented scouring powder on optical surfaces (and spend the extra two bucks on Comet instead of getting the store brand--it's not telescope-grade it if it doesn't have an astronomical-sounding name.) |
* |   | Dobsonians and other Newtonians have a convenient storage compartment, but on a Schmidt Cassegrain you may have trouble opening the glass cover to get to it. |
#5: | You own more telescopes than eyepieces. | |
#4: |   | You have your telescope's mirrors stripped and recoated when you change the oil in your car ... every three thousand miles. |
#3: |   | You keep a calculator and a dictionary by your computer just so you can follow a Brian Tung post. |
#2: |   | You are struck on your "positioned at the eyepiece" head EVERY morning at 4:30 a.m. by the newspaper being hurled into the yard. |
And the number one sign that you're out of control is .... |
||
- | Bubba, the tow truck driver who always bails you out with a jump start, starts showing up at your dark site even before you even start packing up your gear in the morning. | |
- | The wife and kids have moved with a note saying, my lawyer will call in the morning. | |
- | You spend your daylight hours posting to SAA instead of sleeping. | |
- | Your mood is dependent on the Clear Sky Clock. | |
- | You've taken down your Farrah Fawcett poster and instead put up an Al Nagler poster. | |
- | .... and your ex takes down the Al Nagler poster and puts Farrah back up, thinking she is her! By this time you're 1000 miles away with all your astro 'shit' in storage and wondering ... will I ever see M42 again. | |
- | You make love with the lights off *only* to preserve your night vision. | |
- | You've developed a dowager hump from leaning over the EP. | |
- | You start to see asterisms on women wearing polka-dot dresses. | |
- | You map the local power grid looking for a way to selectively take down the lights in your local area. | |
- | You find yourself dumpster diving behind the A-P facility. | |
- | You LoJack your scope, and coordinate your fashion attire to match it. | |
- | You knit booties for all of your eyepieces and think it's perfectly normal. | |
- | You make your intended sign a pre-nup only to insure you keep the astronomy stuff. | |
- | You actually believe the IRS will allow you to take a deduction on your Takahashi purchase as a medical expense. | |
- | You eschew Viagra in favor of Astromart. | |
- | You'll vote for any candidate who even mentions the International Dark-Sky Association. | |
- | You've developed an odd affection for Danny Min. | |
- | You actually find yourself checking Brian Tung's math. | |
- | You feel undressed without a copy of 'Sky & Telescope' in your hand | |
- | Whilst the dentist is viewing your X-ray plates, you wonder whether they might look better if the low energy was colored red, medium colored green and high energy colored blue | |
- | When buying a car, you ask the sales person whether the radio can tune to X-band | |
- | Whenever you open your umbrella, you think of Galileo | |
- | "Shucks, 60 watts, 100 watts, what does that all mean? I wish they would mark light bulbs in electron volts, eV, a much more meaningful scale." | |
- | At the opticians, you remark that the two red circles look like the atomic symbol of a hydrogen molecule | |
- | You visit the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and think to yourself, "hey, looks just like my garage." | |
- | Owning 34 Space Shuttle models is perfectly normal | |
- | "I'm not jealous of your new 20 inch telescope." | |
- | You can't look at a radio receiver without wondering what it would take to turn it into a multi-channel spectrum analyzer for SETI | |
- | You turn up for work in a space suit (and you're not an astronaut) | |
- | You use a star map to plan a road trip, driving by large mountains to get a gravity assist | |
- | "It is not a digital camera, it is a solid state photon imaging array system." | |
- | You do redshift calculations whilst waiting in the supermarket checkout line, just because you can | |
- | "Come on little Charlie, say mama" ..... "Mmm mm mmm mm mmm mmmeade" | |
- | When someone is relating the time of an event, you ask whether the time is in Spacecraft Event Time (SCET) or Earth Received Time (ERT) | |
- | You thought examining the Hubble Ultra Deep Field was better than sex (and that includes the kind of sex where other humans are involved) | |
- | You propose to your bride-to-be at a NASA center and then have a honeymoon vacation in Maryland | |
- | Your catchphrase is, "Magnesium Fluoride for everyone." |