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I tried stacking 200 photos of the Orion nebula and got a blurry mess instead of crisp detail
Last Tuesday night I set up my 8-inch dob in the backyard around 10pm, tracked 200 frames of M42 with my phone adapter. Spent 3 hours stacking them in DeepSkyStacker and the result looked like someone smeared butter on the lens. Turns out my polar alignment was off by like 5 degrees because I was rushing. Anyone else find that spending 20 minutes on alignment saves 3 hours of frustration later?
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dakota_patel9819d ago
blowing 20 minutes on polar alignment? pfft rookie numbers. i spent like an hour trying to get mine perfect last week and still ended up with star trails because i forgot to tighten the clutch on my mount. had this whole plan to stack 150 frames of the Andromeda galaxy and got like 47 usable ones. honestly half the time i think my phone adapter is the problem not my alignment. the little plastic clip thing wiggles when i breathe near it. but yeah i totally relate to that feeling of rushing and then regretting it hard.
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paul28619d ago
Keep watching that phone clip wiggle and you'll realize most of these hobbies are just fancy ways of fighting tiny little failures. Its the same as trying to fix a squeaky bike chain or getting a wobbly table leg straight. You spend all this time on the big fancy setup and the dumb little plastic bit or a loose screw is what kills you. Ever notice how the smallest, cheapest part of any gear is always the thing that makes you want to throw the whole rig in a lake? Bet you check that clutch three times next session.
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