Vent: My 10,000th star photo was a complete dud

I've been taking astronomy photos for about 3 years now, nothing fancy just a beginner setup with a telescope and a DSLR. Last month I hit 10,000 photos on my memory card and I thought, wow that's a cool milestone. So I decided to make my 10,000th shot count. I set up everything perfect, waited for the moon to set, and took a 2 minute exposure of the Orion Nebula. When I checked the back of the camera, the whole thing was just a blurry white mess because I forgot to take off the lens cap. I mean, 10,000 photos and I still make rookie mistakes like that. It just frustrates me because every time I think I'm getting good at this, I do something stupid. Has anyone else had a big milestone photo get ruined by a dumb error like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

ninab951mo ago

Oh man, that stings so much! I totally get it. I did something similar with my 100th Milky Way shot last year I set up a whole timelapse only to realize an hour later my intervalometer was set to the wrong mode. Every single frame was just a black screen because the shutter never fired. Its frustrating but honestly those dumb mistakes are what finally drilled the habit into my head to triple check everything before I walk away from the tripod. Have you started using a quick checklist before each shot?

skylerg171mo ago

Ha, oh man you are speaking my language! I've got a whole collection of "I swear I checked that" moments that would fill a scrapbook (if I were the scrapbooking type, which I'm not). My personal favorite is spending twenty minutes setting up a shot only to realize my lens cap was still on - real prize winner that one.