My telescope mount gave out during a meteor shower shoot last August

My telescope mount gave out during a meteor shower shoot last August. I was out in the Mojave Desert near Joshua Tree trying to capture the Perseids when my old iOptron mount just stopped tracking mid-exposure, losing 2 hours of data. Anyone else had a mount fail on them at the worst time?

3 comments

3 Comments

wendy_jackson2mo ago

Ugh, that's brutal. Same thing happened to me with a Celestron AVX during a lunar eclipse last year, mount just locked up right as the red started to show. Lost a whole night of setup and a solid hour of good data.

the_john2mo ago

...then you know exactly how I felt staring at my screen watching the data I worked for just slip away. The AVX has a real problem with thermal contraction when the temperature drops fast, those cold nights are a gamble every time. I've started keeping a small space heater aimed at the mount base for the first hour of cooling, seems to help but it's not perfect. Did you ever try contacting Celestron support about yours or did you just write it off like I did?

ben_nguyen1mo ago

oh man thats exactly what happened to me with my AVX during the perseids last year. temp dropped like 15 degrees in an hour and i watched the dec drift so bad i had to scrap everything. i feel your pain about the space heater trick, i tried that too but ended up wrapping the base in an old electric blanket with a towel over it. worked okay but i still lost a whole batch of good subs to random lockups that night. never bothered with Celestron support figured theyd just blame it on "ambient conditions" or something.