My tracking mount gave me a surprise during a meteor shower setup

Last August I drove out to Cherry Springs State Park with a new star tracker, hoping to catch the Perseids. I got everything leveled and aimed at the radiant, then realized the counterweight was spinning free because I forgot to tighten the clutch. The whole rig swung around and smacked my tripod leg, knocking the polar alignment out by a solid 10 degrees. I spent 20 minutes redoing the alignment in the dark while mosquitoes decided I was the main course. After that I got about 40 usable frames before clouds rolled in at 2am. Has anyone else had a setup fail that turned into a lesson you only learn once?

2 comments

2 Comments

chen.james1mo ago

Tighten that clutch before you even level the tripod. I learned the same way, except mine swung and took out my finder scope, so I was doing a rough polar alignment with no magnification. Wasted a whole night and got maybe 12 frames. Now I keep a small checklist in my case, takes 30 seconds to run through and it's saved me more than once. And yeah, 20 minutes in the dark is a big deal when every minute is a potential meteor you're missing. A red headlamp and a pre-set phone timer for the drift test helps too, but there's no shortcut for doing it right.

the_tara1mo ago

Wait, is redoing polar alignment really that big of a deal? I mean, 20 minutes in the dark with some bugs sounds annoying, but you still got 40 frames out of it.