Loading…
29
Update: my star tracker broke on the second night of a camping trip and I got better shots without it
Drove up to Cherry Springs last month for two clear nights, and my little star tracker died around 11pm on night one. The RA motor just stopped and started grinding, and no amount of unplugging or fresh batteries brought it back. I was pretty upset because I spent about $300 on it and planned my whole trip around long exposures of the North America Nebula. Night two I said forget it and just put my camera on a cheap tripod, cranked the ISO, and shot 8 second frames instead. Stacked about 200 of those in free software back home and honestly the result looked cleaner than my tracked shots from the same trip. The stars were a touch rounder with tracking, but the shorter subs kept the sky glow down and nothing got thrown out from wind or bumps. I always figured you cannot do decent deep sky without tracking, and now I am not so sure. Has anyone else shot untracked and liked it more than they expected?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
harper_gibson25d ago
Short subs really do dodge a lot of the wind and sky glow problems that long tracking runs run into. Tracking still wins for the faint stuff though, try pulling the North America Nebula at 8 seconds and you just won't get the same signal.
1