April fools day - time to reveal our major fails - Forums

Topic starter

Apr 1, 2022

Happy April fools day. Why not make a fool out of oneself?

I start with my bloody beginner major fails:

#1: Thinking that as an experienced (40+ years) photographer I know it all and just have to buy the equipment, put it together and get going.
#2: Return empty handed from my first imaging session due to failing to connect to my Raspberry PI on location - just didn't start up properly.
#3: Making a mistake in star hopping when trying to image seagull nebula. Still got the head of the seagull with 5h of integration time but the body was chopped off.
#4:Waisting another 5h session in trying to capture a faint nebula (Simeis 147) with a nonmodified mirrorless camera in RGB. Nice stars, but no nebula …
#5: Not controlling for focus shift during the imaging session. The first 90 minutes were spot on. I could toss away the remaining 3 hours.
#6: Taking a lazy approach to cable management resulting in a cable snatch. My mount tore the cable from my guiding camera with parts of the plug remaining in the USB port.
#7: Increasing the spread of the tripod legs, expecting a more stable setup with better RMS guiding values. Then losing 1 hour of precious integration time due to the necessity to repeat polar alignment after tripping over these legs in the middle of the imaging session.

I would be pleased to learn that I'm not alone, occasionally acting like an idiot out in the field. So please let me here about your major fails.

Have fun and clear skies
Wolfgang

Peter Robertson

Apr 1, 2022

You are not alone. They all sound a bit familiar.

Once found my camera had snagged on the star tracker base, after many hours. The pressure of the motor against the base had unwound the thread in the Swiss plate mount, and so when I came to stop the session, the camera was dangling, by a thread above the paving stones. Lost power many times and likewise somehow managed to shift the framing before starting shooting , and then getting 8 hours of half a nebula 🙁

Jim Medley

Apr 1, 2022

Cable snags are still my most common mistake. No equipment damage but I have lost hours when the mount ground on helplessly against a taut USB cable.
The dumbest one was not plugging in the dew heaters and losing an entire session in the dark and cold with the telescope objective covered with ice.

Michael Ring

Apr 1, 2022

As a bloody rookie I set up quite late under perfect conditions which resulted in lots of stars beeing visible in the polar scope, this made it impossible for me the find the North Star, so after trying for more than an hour or two I drove home with zero pictures.

Needless to say that on the next night I was better prepared with a copy of StellarMate on a Raspberry Pi. Never again tried to use the Polarscope…..

Andy Wray

Apr 1, 2022

My most recent was not tightening up the mount to the tripod after getting an "Excellent" polar alignment in SharpCap. I ended up with a night of guiding between 2 and 3 arc seconds RMS and didn't know why. Doh!

SemiPro

IOTD Staff

Perfect post

Apr 1, 2022

Have you guys ever driven hours to a dark site, started setting up - only to realize that you forgot the battery?

No, no… I have NEVER done that.

Bonus points if you forget the bahtinov mask.

Frank Lothar Unger

Apr 1, 2022

- capturing with Bathinov mask still installed…………
- trying to focus with lens cap
- capturing with DSLR, data still in JPG format….

CS

Frank

Andy Wray

Apr 1, 2022

Using the wrong flats/darks .. done that too many times

Sean van Drogen

Apr 1, 2022

my most recent was building a whole sequence in NINA, doing a very accurate polar align during Nautical dusk.
Set the sequence to run in the meantime go out for a nice diner and night of fun and in the morning going to check the captures and having zero results.
By mistake set the "wait until" time command to Astronomical Dawn instead of Astronomical Dusk

Also trying to PA and getting no results on camera lots of platesolve fails etc only to realize after 30 minutes cap is till on the scope

and many more

CS
Sean

Scott Badger

Apr 1, 2022

A very rare night with clear skies, good seeing, and no breeze. I get everything started, hang out for a bit and all is well, so head to bed. Next morning i go back out to pack up and……though i plugged the laptop AC adapter into the power strip, I didn’t plug it into the laptop…..and being cold that night, not even an hour of imaging.

Scott

drblevy13

Apr 1, 2022

My all-time worst mistake was my first time traveling with my Celestron EdgeHD11. Naturally, I was really excited to get going so I wanted to set up fast. Got the tripod and mount set up, plugged in the mount, and began to slew when the OTA seems to move faster than normal, mount LED flickers and then shuts off.

Then I realize I never attached the counterweight shaft or counterweights.

Michael Timm

Apr 1, 2022 · Edited: Apr 1, 2022

Ah, i love stories when we all were bloody beginners. Here are some of mine:
- Trying hours and hours different things when the preview screen remains black ("Wrong distance of CCD?" -> trying _a lot of_ different spacings, "Software screwed up?" -> reinstall everything, "Camera defect?" -> use another camera) just to learn that removing the lid of the scope is a good idea…
- Setting up everything perfectly, starting PHD2, feeling good, going inside, watching TV-series for some hours, going back outside just to check everything works perfect, realizing i forgot to hit the "Start Capture" button in SharpCap

- Imaging a whole night at max gain (i use max gain when aligning) -> unusable images
- Wondering why the mount won't hit any object in the sky when slewing -> entering the correct date/time helps a lot!

And, my all time favorite (yep i have done that!):
- Using an infrared heat lamp to get rid of the dew! -> Really bad idea…

CS Michi

Peter Robertson

Apr 2, 2022 · Edited: Apr 2, 2022

Michael Ring:
As a bloody rookie I set up quite late under perfect conditions which resulted in lots of stars beeing visible in the polar scope, this made it impossible for me the find the North Star, so after trying for more than an hour or two I drove home with zero pictures.

Needless to say that on the next night I was better prepared with a copy of StellarMate on a Raspberry Pi. Never again tried to use the Polarscope…..

That’s never a problem in the southern hemisphere …, but the opposite of not being able to see very many starts is, especially under Bortle 7 skies 🙁 I can usually only see three of the 4 octans reticle stars.

Dale Penkala

Apr 2, 2022 · Edited: Apr 2, 2022

I recently switched computers over from 1 setup to the other and after updating all my drivers/software trying to get PHD2 to connect to and STAY connected to the right camera when 2 cameras of the same make were plugged in! After several nights of pulling what little hair I have OUT I posted about this and I found that I missed a driver that didn’t get updated that allowed me to configure the 2 same make cameras in PHD2! Several nights of lost data collection and many cus words and lost hair! 🤣

Honorable mentions:
Yes forgot to turn on the dew heaters!
Cable management issues!

Dale

Stefano Ciapetti

Apr 2, 2022 · Edited: Apr 2, 2022

I read all the stories, but I think mine can pass all of yours.

The first time I was using my Vixen GPDX coupled with the Skysensor 2000 pc (I am an old man, as you can see from the equipment) a very crazy thing happened. I have assembled everything by myself and put system - mount + tripod + c8 - on my balcony. Balcony was located at third floor of a city centre flat. Turned everything on, but mount was not moving.
Open the the gear door…and found out that one of the gears was not properly fixed. But opening the gear door happened that the gear escaped from its position, jumped on the balcony, and from the balcony on the sidewalk and from the sidewalk rolled into one of the holes on the asphalt deputed to dry raining water.
Lost this gear forever. Luckily I was able to recover another gear from local Vixen importer. This thing happened almost 20 years ago.
After that I was able to fix that mount that has been with me for many nights. But first time was shocking.

lucian_nicu

Apr 3, 2022 · Edited: Apr 3, 2022

Have you guys ever driven hours to a dark site, started setting up - only to realize that you forgot the battery?

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