My 2006 tracking mount finally gave up during a meteor shower shoot

Went out Saturday night to catch the Perseids with my old Celestron mount, the one I've had since 2006. About 20 minutes in, the motor started making this grinding noise and then just stopped dead. I was halfway through a 30 second exposure and the stars turned into little streaks. Ended up just laying on the grass watching the shower with my bare eyes, which was actually better than any photo I would've gotten. Anyone else have an old mount that died mid-shoot, and did you fix it or just start doing untracked widefield shots instead?

2 comments

2 Comments

jade2211mo ago

Man, that sucks but honestly that bare eyes ending sounds kinda perfect. Grinding motors are almost never worth cracking open to fix unless you've got a spare gearbox lying around, and even then the tracking accuracy will haunt you forever. Untracked widefield is the move for meteor showers anyway, short exposures, stack them later, and you won't need to babysit a dying mount all night.

the_sarah1mo ago

Honestly though, untracked widefield works for meteors but it murders DSO quality. Even with stacking, you lose detail on faint nebulae because you're fighting field rotation and shorter subs. If the mount still tracks at like 30 second exposures before drifting, that's way better than 2 to 5 second untracked shots for anything beyond a meteor shower. I'd rather babysit a dying mount for one good night than end up with a stack of soft, noisy images that need a year of processing to look okay.