The night my new camera mount just... gave up

Last Thursday, I finally got a clear sky for the first time in weeks, so I drove out to the state park to try and capture the Orion Nebula. I spent an hour setting up my Sky-Watcher mount, got it all polar aligned, and started a 3-minute exposure. Halfway through, the whole thing just shuddered and the tracking stopped dead. I checked the power, but the battery was fine. It just... quit. Now I've got a memory card full of ruined, streaky shots. Has anyone else had a mount fail mid-shot like that?

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1 Comment

joel_brown194h ago

Man, that shudder and stop is the worst sound. My old Celestron mount developed this weird grinding noise that would only happen on cold nights, like the grease was too thick. It never fully died, but it would ruin a shot by jumping a few pixels every time. I ended up just using it for planetary after that.