laura_knight54•1mo agoTop Commenter

Finally got a decent shot of the Andromeda Galaxy after 3 months of trying

I've been messing with my telescope setup since January and kept ending up with blurry blobs instead of stars. Last Tuesday night at a local park outside Austin, I finally figured out my polar alignment was off by a tiny bit. I used a $30 laser pointer on a mount trick someone on here mentioned, and it fixed everything. Got a 2-minute exposure that actually showed the dust lanes for once. Has anyone else had that moment where one small tweak made all the difference?

2 comments

2 Comments

luna_sanchez29d ago

Man that laser pointer trick is gold. I spent six months blaming my mount before figuring out the same exact thing. Polar alignment is like that one stupid thing that ruins everything and nobody warns you about. Congrats on nailing Andromeda, those dust lanes feel like winning the lottery after all that frustration.

the_reese29d ago

Spent a whole week thinking my mount was haunted lmao.