When I lived in a little town, I went out at night in the snow with my new telescope. I had to rig up a poncho on the clotheslines there to block out some of the many stray lights. It didn't, however, block out stray cats. I had a lawn chair to sit on and found it occupied a lot by Wild Thing, the first of the feral family I called The Wilds.
They lived in an abandoned barn about a block away. The mama cat, Sweetie, brought me two kittens to feed the following spring, Funny Face and Oreo. Oreo was still young when she encountered something that got hold of her tail. The vet said it was probably an engine belt. It was an expensive operation, and she had to be kept in the garage while she recovered from her tailectomy. Returning from work in the late evening, I would take a book out there and sit with her so she would tame down.
Later, I introduced her to the house cats. Little Mittens was accidentally hit by Lissa one night. She thought he was dead and took him in her truck to bury him. He revived on the way home and surprised her by being extremely wild. She recovered from her injuries, tamed him down, got him neutered, then brought him to me.
Stormy was a tiny kitten I found in the front yard after a big rain.
When I got to move to the country, I loaded all six fixed cats into carriers and drove them here. Sweetie managed to get out on the long drive and spent the trip on my shoulder, complaining loudly. They all took to the place at once and lived in the playhouse that had a cat door. Sadly, all but Oreo died or went missing in the years that followed. She has always been the most wary, which has kept her alive. Also, sleeping in bed with me, Iris and Bogie is not too dangerous and she is fairly safe from predators on the couch.
Fluffy was even more of a miserable specimen when I first glimpsed her. It's hard for a long-haired cat to live in the wild. Several times, Beau chased her up trees. She did look like a raccoon. This spring, she shed her mat of fur and got much better looking, but hasn't been seen in a while. This was one of her rare daytime visits.
So, my advice for taming wild cats is take up astronomy. Cats trust fellow nocturnal creatures.
