Just realized my star tracker mount was off by 2 degrees all night

I overheard a guy at the observatory say his polar alignment was off by half a degree and it ruined his Andromeda shot, so I checked my logs and found out I've been getting those trailing stars for 6 months because I never recalibrated after dropping the tripod in March. Anyone else forget a basic step and waste hours of imaging time?

2 comments

2 Comments

christopher_hunt6d ago

2 degrees? Thats amateur hour man lol.

the_andrew1d ago

Amateur hour" describes most of my astrophotography career, I just have the "hour" stretched out over several years. At least you can claim your drifting stars were an "artistic choice" like I do.