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Showerthought: I started taping a red flashlight to my lens cap and my star photos finally stopped looking like soup
So for about a year I kept getting these blurry, washed out star trails and I could not figure out why. Turns out my problem was that I kept fiddling with my tripod and focus in the dark with my phone flashlight on, which wrecked my night vision and threw off my focus every single time. Last weekend at a dark site near Flagstaff I tried something dumb: I taped a cheap red flashlight to my lens cap so I could not lose it and could not blind myself. It worked way better than I expected. I set my focus on a bright star, taped the focus ring down with painter's tape, and shot 90 frames at 20 seconds each. The red light let me check settings without losing my dark adapted eyes, and for the first time my Orion shots actually show the nebula instead of a fuzzy blob. Now I want to know what weird little hacks you all use in the field when it is pitch black and you are fumbling around. Anyone got a trick for keeping your lens from fogging up that does not involve buying a $40 heater strip?
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elizabethmason6d ago
Instead of fighting the fog with heat you can just wrap a hand warmer around the lens barrel with a rubber band, way cheaper than those strips. Point the lens slightly down between shots too, since dew settles on whatever faces up.
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