Vent: Spent 2 hours stacking 3 minute exposures before I realized my interval timer was off

I was out at a dark spot near Lake Elsinore trying to get the Orion Nebula. Set my intervalometer to take 3 minute subs like always, but I must have bumped the dial. Came home, stacked everything in DeepSkyStacker and got pure garbage. Checked the file metadata and each exposure was only 30 seconds. Wasted a whole clear night and now it's supposed to rain for a week. Has anyone else had a setup go wrong because of one stupid setting you didn't double check?

3 comments

3 Comments

jordanm1923d ago

Man, that hurts just reading it. Did you check the intervalometer settings before you packed up for the night, or were you just rushing to get started? I always forget to test my sequence with a single quick frame before committing to hours of data, and that's bitten me before too (though not with a 30 second vs 3 minute mistake, yikes).

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jakeperry18d ago

@jordanm19 actually 30 second vs 3 minute is worse than you think... 3 minute subs on most mounts will show star trails.

alice80823d ago

Oh, have I been there. My rule now is to frame a single test shot and double check everything in the camera's info display before I even hit start. I once set my intervalometer to take 1 second exposures instead of 60 seconds and ended up with 3,000 useless star trails. Also, I always take a photo of my settings with my phone as a backup, saves me from second guessing myself at 3am when I'm freezing. Your mileage may vary, but checking the exposure time in the dark is way easier now.