Honestly, a guy at our local star party told me my Jupiter shots looked like 'muddy potatoes' and it stung, but he was right

3 comments

3 Comments

That's a rough way to get feedback, but useful. What were the main issues? Was it a focus problem, or the seeing conditions that night? Sometimes it's just bad atmospheric turbulence making everything soft.

eva9081mo ago

My friend's "bad atmospheric turbulence" was actually a smudge on his corrector plate (he felt so dumb).

thomas2751mo agoMost Upvoted

Yeah, that kind of feedback hurts but it's how you learn. I had the same thing happen and it pushed me to really nail my focus and collimation. Getting a sharp image before you even hit record makes a huge difference. I also started paying way more attention to the forecast for seeing conditions, and only shoot on the really steady nights now. It took a lot of bad potato shots to get there though.