Rant: My star tracker got stuck on a single setting for a whole night in Flagstaff

I was trying to image the Andromeda Galaxy from a dark site near Flagstaff and my tracker got stuck on a 30-second exposure. I thought the whole night was wasted, but when I stacked all 200 frames, the detail was shockingly clean. It forced me to learn how to really push my stacking software, DeepSkyStacker, to its limits. Has anyone else ever had a gear failure lead to a better final image?

3 comments

3 Comments

park.abby1mo ago

Gear screws up" used to mean a total loss for me.

barbara_baker571mo ago

Sometimes the gear screws up and you learn more than if it worked. Sounds like a good night after all.

park.abby1mo ago

Totally, that "gear screws up" thing is so true. My buddy's camera shutter froze at a wedding last month, he had to get creative with his phone and actually got some of his favorite shots ever.