My telescope mount died on the best night of the year

I set up at Cherry Springs last Friday for the Perseids and the motor on my old EQ mount quit after 20 minutes, so I just wedged my phone against a rock and got one shaky 8 second shot of the Milky Way. Has anyone else had a mount fail right at the worst possible moment, and did you find a decent budget fix or did you just give up and go manual?

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scott.drew18d ago

Man, that hurts just reading it! I had my tripod leg snap on me during a lunar eclipse once, so I feel your pain. I ended up duct taping the whole thing to a lawn chair and it wobbled like crazy, but I got one usable photo out of it before the clouds rolled in. Honestly, for a budget fix, I’d say just go full manual and learn to love your phone on a rock. You get way fewer pixels but way less heartbreak when the gear decides to quit. Plus, you can always blame the rock if the shot sucks, right?

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