Close encounter

[Guest guest]

Last night a bit after midnight, the sky was completely cloudless. It was cold with a bright moon out and Orion clearly visible. So, I went outside for a look. All I had was this little monocle type telescope with 8 to 16 power zoom. It was pretty easy to view the moon with though zoom wasn't all that much. it was much harder to find parts of orion on the low zoom, focus then turn the zoom ring and refocus with that little handheld thing.

I was trying to zoom in on the Orion Nebula for about the fourth time and was managing to keep it in the field of view, not at all easy given all the movement involved with focusing. As a result, I was standing very still in the middle of the yard in a rather uncomfortable, arms high and leaning back position, when to my left I noticed movement.

I stayed still and looked carefully as something came around the side of the house. It wasn't human. It was a deer a doe I think. It came up along the remains of the flowerbed and carefully walked toward the street. The deer probably smelled me because it was looking around and sniffing, but because I was still it didn't notice me. It nearly reached the street when a car drove by across the cross street. This was about 50 yards away and in the cold, still air it was amazingly loud, the tire noise more than the engine. That spooked the deer and it turned and ran back behind the house again.

The deer never got close than about 50 feet from me. Once it was gone, I returned to a normal standing position. My hands were sore and tired and my neck stiff from holding that position for so long. Realizing I'd also probably look rather foolish is anyone drove by the house, and how easy of a mark I would be for prowlers, I went back inside.