hayden144•1mo agoProlific Poster

Spent 3 hours trying to stack photos of the Orion Nebula and realized I forgot to turn on my tracking mount

I finally got a clear night last week and set up my telescope to capture the Orion Nebula. Took like 50 frames before packing up, proud of myself. Next day I try to stack them in DeepSkyStacker and nothing lines up. After 3 hours of fiddling with settings and watching tutorials, I walked back outside and saw my mount was still in manual mode. Has anyone else done something this dumb with their gear?

2 comments

2 Comments

elliotm701mo ago

Dude, I did the exact same thing with the Andromeda Galaxy last month, spent two hours on it before I checked the mount. It's like a rite of passage for astrophotography, honestly.

brooke7671mo ago

Ngl, that's the most frustrating thing ever. I finally had to tape a checklist to my tripod with giant red letters that say "POLAR ALIGN FIRST" because I kept making that mistake. Now I just do a quick drift alignment before I even touch the camera settings, saves so much heartache. Took me three ruined sessions before I learned to breathe and check the basics.