PSA: That photo of the Andromeda Galaxy I took looked like a blurry blob until I tweaked one thing

I spent months shooting Andromeda with my DSLR on a basic tripod, and every single frame was just this smudgy gray mess. I could barely make out the core, let alone any dust lanes. Then last week I finally figured out the issue was my exposure time was way too short because I was scared of star trails. I bumped it from 2 seconds to 15 seconds using a cheap star tracker I picked up off Craigslist for 60 bucks. The difference was insane like going from a dirty windshield to a fresh polish. Now I'm kicking myself for not buying that tracker sooner. Has anyone else had a single gear upgrade totally change their astrophotography game?

2 comments

2 Comments

aliceg611mo ago

A Bahtinov mask for focusing was my TOTAL game-changer.

casey3931mo ago

Third night out with my new 8 inch dob I spent two hours fighting with the focus knob and got maybe three usable shots of Jupiter. Then my buddy handed me his Bahtinov mask and I got sharp focus on the first try. The diffraction spikes lined up perfect and I finally saw what everyone meant by crisp detail on the bands. Now I keep the mask in the eyepiece case so it's always with me. Total night and day difference for planetary and lunar shots.