My first attempt at the Milky Way core ended with a blurry mess

I drove out to the Mojave Desert last month, about 40 miles past Barstow, to finally shoot the galactic center. I set up my Canon 6D on a tripod and tried to use a star tracker I borrowed from a friend, but I didn't read the manual. The tracker stopped working after 20 minutes, so I switched to just shooting wide open at 3200 ISO with 15 second exposures. Every frame looked soft, like the stars were tiny blobs, and I couldn't figure out if the lens was out of focus or the tracker was slipping. I eventually realized the exposure time was too long for my 50mm lens, even at that high ISO. Has anyone else wasted a dark sky trip because of gear they didn't test first, and what do you check now before you drive out?

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2 Comments

tara7932mo ago

Test everything in your backyard first, lesson learned the hard way. That tracker needs a full run through with your exact lens before you trust it. Now I always do a quick focus check with live view zoom on a bright star before anything else.

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phoenixb342mo ago

Man, that reminds me of my buddy Dave. He spent a whole weekend dialing in his tracker in the garage, thought he was golden. First real night out, his stars came out looking like little V shapes because the lens mount was loose. He didn't check focus on a bright star, just trusted his settings. Now he won't even bring gear out of the car without doing that exact live view zoom first.

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