You Know your a DSO When...

You know you're a Deep Sky Observer when...

You consider the moon a major annoyance.

You consider Jupiter 'light pollution'.

You consider meteors 'light pollution'.

You consider the milky way 'light pollution'.

You contemplate ways of destroying the Earth because it's in the way.

You pack Dry Ice around your head to reduce the "noise" from your retina and optic nerve.

You refuse to use the ladder with your 20" f/6 at the Winter Star Party stating, "If I use that, the objects are too far north."

You consider the H-II regions of distant galaxies as individual observing targets.

You spend most of your time looking at or for objects you can barely see.

Your favorite objects are objects you can barely see.

You enjoy looking at faint fuzzies with the smallest possible aperture.

You enjoy looking at faint fuzzies with the largest possible aperture.

You like to choose objects that are easier to imagine than to see.

Your observing schedule demands that you search for objects in twilight.

You wonder how your favorite objects missed getting included in the New

General Catalog or the Index Catalog.

You're not sure that anything in this solar system counts as Astronomy any more.

You're amazed that anyone needs artificial light to read charts.

You could do a Messier Marathon from memory, if you still bothered with Messier objects.

You can read all the NGC abbreviated visual descriptions without using the key, but you have to be careful not to cheat by just remembering what things look like.

You view a major earthquake as an opportunity for a close-in dark-sky star party.

You are attending a major star party (guess which one), and you ask the organizers to turn down the Milky Way.

You believe M13 ruined your dark adaptation.

You welcome (and have even considered instigating) power cuts, but only if they occur on clear moonless nights.

You observe M42 at the end of the sessions because it DOES ruin dark adaptation!

Your choice of a new vehicle is determined by the size of your scope.

Vacation time is planned around the Winter and Texas (or other) Star parties.

Arp is not a funny sound, but the name of one of your favorite galaxy catalogues.

You challenge friends by saying .."Lets do something stupid" ..as you hunt for deep sky objects on a lazy, full-moon night because you are faint-photon starved.

You find auroras a complete annoyance because they ruin sky contrast and dark adaptation.

You memorize the NGC catalog and can recite type and magnitude off the top of your head when asked "What is a NGC 1000?"

Your ideal site would require oxygen.

Your ideal vacation would be in Namibia, but... Your ideal telescope would be immovable.

You prep your eyes by applying pupil dilating drops until they open to 10mm.

You travel to Australia to read your star charts by the light of the Milky Way.

You plan a two month trip to Australia and spend all of it in the middle of the continent trying to find every southern DSO.

Instead of vitamins you take bilberry pills.

You actually know where to get bilberry jam, and make a point of consuming some prior to observing sessions

You'd rather observe than go on a hot date.

For some reason you're always depressed when that time of the month (full moon) occurs

In preparation for another DSO bout, you carefully massage your eyes to make sure all your rods are discharged.

You pay $3500 for a pupil enlargement operation even though you own a 1 meter light bucket

You complain you can't really see the faint stuff because the Gegenschein is too bright.

You consider how to blow-up the SUN in order to reduce light pollution.

While spot checking the collimation of your dob, you note that with concentration you can just begin to detect spiral structure in the dust coating your primary.

You take deep-sky pictures during a total eclipse of the moon.

You actually know how to USE setting circles.

You have NO use for setting circles. Star hopping to a 18th mag. smudge is a breeze.

You actually USE 'Uranometria', and can quote page numbers.

You frequently disagree with Burnhams, and have seriously considered publishing your OWN "observer's guide".

You see absolutely no value in using a Telrad.

Your principal finder scope is larger than 80mm.

You consider 15 minutes to be a 'quick' exposure.

You see more DSOs on your laptop screen during an evenings' observing session than you do through the eyepiece.

You have seriously considered starting up your own anti-satellite lobby.

You have blackened the edges of your eyeglasses.

You are briefly taken aback by the brightness of a normal flashlight under "normal flashlight" circumstances (power outages, e.g.)

You hire a crop duster to spray the surrounding area because last night the fire flies kept ruining your dark adaptation.

You think GM's Daytime Running Lights are some kind of evil alien scheme.

You can make ten trips lugging equipment back and forth across a cow pasture without stepping on a single cow pie, using only the illumination of that garishly bright Milky Way to guide you.

You wear sun screen during full moon periods.

You wear sun glasses during full moon periods.

You wear red sunglasses all day in preparation for viewing that night.

You've been thinking that a 14th century black monk's hood is a pretty cool idea.

Night lights are a nuisance in your house.

You wear an eye patch during the viewing session.

The dome light of your car is painted red.

You paint the LED's on your equipment with red fingernail polish so that they are dimmer.

You begin to realize that even the deepest red flash light is affecting your vision.

You remove the LED on your drive control panel, because THAT ruins your dark adaptation.

You use an infrared flashlight.

You keep thinking that if only the stars would go away, it might really get dark.

You always set your scope up so that you can't move your car until daylight.

You bring a gallon of coffee (or 12 pack of Diet Coke) to the viewing session.

If the caffeine doesn't keep you awake the urge to "go" does.

You keep a cross-index of stuff that you have looked at on 3x5 file cards organized by object catalog number, so you can easily find your logged observations of any specific object.

You have elective surgery to replace your eye's natural lenses with f/0.8, oil-spaced, apochromatic triplet objectives designed by Roland Christen.

You think about how to smash the nearby street light without getting caught.

You think about how much the penalty would be for smashing the nearby street lamp.

You're caught by the police climbing light poles at night trying to "unscrew" the bulbs.

You ask your neighbors over to star gaze, so they will know to turn out their porch lights.

You complain you can't really see the faint stuff because the Zodiacal Light is too bright.

You can talk with a red flashlight in your mouth.

You can actually understand someone talking with a red flashlight in THEIR mouth!

You get a "DSO" tattoo on your arm.

You name your kids after deep sky objects.

In order to provide better spousal communication, you buy your wife a light bucket and compare notes.

Your wife places a picture of herself in your favorite star atlas, to remind you of what she looks like.

Your spouse is wearing a sexy evening garment with wine glasses in hand and you want to stay outside in -10 degree temperatures to catch a few more NGC's.

You get red contacts made 'cuz the red goggles have been letting too much white light.

You glue glow-in-the-dark M-objects on your living room ceiling for practice observing during overcast evenings.

When the sequence "OBAFGKM" feels more natural than "ABCDEF...

You plan your trips past the Arctic/Antarctic Circle to coincide with the appropriate solstice

You look forward to that time of the night when certain edge-on spirals pose at 45 degrees.

You pour those Cheerios for breakfast at 6:00am in the morning only to realize you haven't been to bed yet.

You refer to your Cheerios breakfast as "my bowl full of M57's.

You start looking for the central star in one of your Cheerios. and you see it.

You drive to the observing site in a Ford Galaxy. whose license plate number starts with "NGC"

You can make observations of mag 18 galaxies from your driveway with your favorite Tasco 50 mm refractor!

You see the letters "sex" and your first thought is of the constellation sextans!

You look forward to that time of night ( year ) when the Milky Way goes all the way around the horizon

You. find an 8"F6 with a really good primary and think "This will make a nice finder on my big dob".

You just finished a 30 minute exposure and realize that you never cocked the shutter.

You drive 130 miles to a remote site in pouring rain and sit there all night hoping it will clear.

You have learned to judge your dark adaptation (and the quality of the dark site) by how good M-13 (or some other big, bright DSO) looks naked eye.

You have learned to judge your dark adaptation (and the quality of the dark site) by how good M-33 (or some other big, low surface brightness DSO) looks naked eye.

You try to convince the "shallow sky observers" that comets and asteroids are much more interesting than planets.

Your collection of astrophotos weighs more than you.

Your collection of disks of CCD photos weighs more than you.

You can point out the locations of deep sky objects, in broad daylight.

You have considered making mega - binoculars out of two 10" scopes.

You have considered buying nearby real estate in order to demolish it.

You believe telescopes should qualify for religious tax exemptions.

You regard sky charts as 'Ancient history' books.

You gave up smoking not for health reasons but because it ruined your night vision.

You have considered moving to another hemisphere to see some new sights.

You get O-III Filter contact lenses