(meteorobs) Police and astronomical observations

[Wayne T Hally]

You've got to be careful which scope. Back in the 70's I was observing with 
my bright red Astroscan, and the officer was convinced it was a device for 
smoking something :-0

I did manage to convince him to look at the moon through it (one of the 
Astroscan's wide field advantages), so all ended well.

Wayne

----------
From: 	Richard Taibi[SMTP:rjtaibi at hotmail.com]
Sent: 	Sunday, December 26, 2004 12:20 PM
To: 	meteorobs at meteorobs.org
Subject: 	(meteorobs) Police and astronomical observations

This seems like a "quiet" time on the list, so I hope others won't mind a
brief off-topic issue.

Thanks to the two observers who shared their experiences with police while
observing the sky.  It is reassuring to know that police inquiries occur on 
an international scale!  Jeff's idea about carrying a telescope to "prove"
you are an amateur astronomer sounds like a good one, if you don't mind
lugging it around.  I had a brief idea during my encounter of offering to
let the cops listen to my tape-recorded observational notes.  I hoped that
might eliminate their suspicions that I was a felon up to something.

Another unsettling incident comes back to my mind, when I volunteered to
observe grazing occultations with Dr. David Dunham about 20 years ago.  On
one occasion, I had my refractor set up, aimed at the moon and a local
policeman drove up, lights and sirens on, to investigate the scene.  To the 
layman, a telescope, with its long tube, aimed at the sky can summon up an
image of an artillery piece, I guess.  As in "tom's" incident a look thru
the scope convinced him I was who I said.  In these days of worrying about
terrorists, I suppose the police are even more vigilant than about 20 years 
ago, and perhaps more suspicious.

So, perhaps those of us who travel to a public site to observe need to give 
some thought about how to explain ourselves should the police drop in to
chat!  Dr. Dunham had some explanatory literature written up to give the
police if the situation arose.  Perhaps this is another idea, too, for us 
to
emulate.

Best wishes for good uninterrupted observing!    Rich


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