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My telescope mount died during the Perseids and I almost lost it

Honestly, I was out at a dark spot near Lake Huron around 2 AM trying to capture the meteor shower. My Orion mount just froze up and stopped tracking mid-shot, so I had to manually adjust the tripod every 30 seconds for two hours. Ended up with only 3 usable frames out of 50, but one of them caught a bright fireball streaking right through Andromeda. Has anyone else had their gear fail at the worst possible moment and still managed to salvage something cool?
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3 Comments
the_robin
the_robin2mo ago
Man oh man, gear always picks the worst time to throw a tantrum. I had my mount start making this horrible grinding noise once during a lunar eclipse, and I just had to sit there holding the camera steady like a human tripod for like an hour. Got one halfway decent shot of the red moon though, so at least I walked away with something. Your fireball through Andromeda sounds way cooler than my shaky moon blob.
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matthewgonzalez
Read somewhere that Perseids peak right when most gear decides to quit.
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lane.angela
Yeah @matthewgonzalez the Perseids peak in August actually. Gear quits year round.
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