Does anyone else feel almost sci-fi when setting up or operating their imaging rig?

[pipnina]

Whether it's the cable setup, looking at black and white noisy pictures coming in on the laptop when focusing or taking flats, the live preview and graph in the guiding program, the grainy individual pictures we get, the temperamental nature of the equipment (always anticipating something going wrong with it!)... It almost seems like operating makeshift equipment in a sci-fi show. Me setting things up gives me mental images sometimes of being a real observatory starting observations because of the scientific-looking images I get when focusing. Sometimes it's more like The Doctor trying to set up something in a panic to defeat the Sontarans with cables running everywhere, lugging heavy equipment about, tapping around on the computer trying to get it all to behave etc.😄

Certainly whenever I try to speak to other people about it all they look at me as though I'm from Star Trek...

[Robindonne]

Lol. I remember the first time i plugged in the power cable of my goto mount. Carefully turned the switch to ON. Staring at those dangerous arrow buttons om the hand controller.  The first presses were just hard enough to really not making contact at all.   Turn everything off to quadruple check what im doing.    And those sessions last for some days to finally be able to press that arrow button hard enough to make contact and hear the motors making noise.
 

To realize 2 months later that i really need to upgrade to a bigger mount, scope, camera, asiair etc because all feels like toys and i want more and bigger and faster.  You all know how it feels😅

[david_taurus83]

I actually think this is where the appeal of the hobby is to most beginners. That excitement of setting up new kit, figuring out how it all works, the frustration, the problem solving, getting everything to talk to each other and work correctly while finally watching those subs appear on screen. It's marvellous!

[MarkRadice]

Nah the best approach is to keep looking through the eyepiece when doing a goto. It’s like being in Star Wars hyperdrive as an endless streams of stars shoot across the field of view.