Show us your bloopers

[Whistlin Bob]

A tipsy dither.

We have an Astro-imaging sub-group at our local club, and at the last meeting @Stub Mandrel suggested sharing bloopers, and I was thinking afterwards that it was a good idea- so here’s my submission…

Sods law dictated that the only clear night in weeks should coincide with a pre-arranged zoom drinks and quiz night with some local dads. I thought that at least I could get some imaging done whilst it was on. Trouble is, to avoid walking noise on my Star Adventurer, I have to manually dither the mount.

Three rounds in, before my turn to be question master, I suggested we have a ten minute break and quickly hared into the garden. Unfortunately it’s quite a delicate procedure, involving a tiny couple of degrees on the slo-mo knob. I completely botched it and had to do a hasty re-alignment. Just about got it done and ran back in thinking ‘Phew- got away with that’.

No, I didn’t.

See below: imaging restarted with completely different framing and polar alignment knocked out, leaving the mount slewing drunkenly off track.

Anyone else want to share their 'less than perfect' efforts?

[CCD-Freak]

I did not set up the stacking process correctly....

"Flying through Hyper-Space ain't like dusting crops"

 

John Love
CCD-Freak
WD5IKX

Edited January 24, 2021 by CCD-Freak

[Ibbo!]

No idea what went wrong and yes I did get get them to stack properly the next day.

 

 

 

[Graham Darke]

Cant really show you my biggest blooper but I did once set my scope up under partial cloud as it was just starting to get dark. In my haste to get going once the clouds completely cleared I spotted what I thought was Polaris and set about polar aligning. I was very pleased with myself to get aligned very quickly. Once I did the did the first go to I realised something was very wrong. I’d polar aligned on Kochab! I wouldn’t recommend it. 

[Whistlin Bob]

@Ibbo! and @CCD-Freak those have both come out quite funky!