the_river•17d agoMost Upvoted

Just realized my star tracker was way off because of a loose screw

Spent 3 nights getting blurry shots of the Orion Nebula and kept blaming light pollution from a nearby town. Finally checked the polar alignment mount and found the main adjustment screw had worked itself loose by maybe a quarter turn. Tightened it with a hex key I found in my camera bag and the next 30 second exposure was crystal clear. Anyone else ever have a simple mechanical issue ruin their Astrophotography for way too long?

2 comments

2 Comments

aaron19717d ago

Funny how the smallest things can mess up hours of work. Reminds me of a time when my car's check engine light kept coming on and I chased sensors for a week only to find the gas cap was just a little loose. Tight threads fix a lot of problems in life.

claire_campbell16d ago

Gotta love how @aaron197 nailed it with that gas cap story. It's always the dumb simple stuff that slips through because we're so busy looking for big complicated problems. My laptop did the same thing once wouldn't turn on for a whole afternoon and it was just the charger cord bent the wrong way.