My $60 intervalometer for astrophotography just saved my bacon on a cold night

Last week I was out at a dark site near Big Bear Lake trying to capture the Orion Nebula through my 8 inch Dobsonian. I had been using a cheap remote shutter release for years but it kept failing after 20 minutes. So I finally dropped $60 on a basic intervalometer from a camera shop. That thing let me set 30 second exposures for two hours straight without me touching the gear. I was sitting in my car with the heater on while it clicked away automatically. The results were way sharper because I wasn't bumping the scope trying to reset the timer. Have any of you tried a DIY intervalometer versus store bought?

3 comments

3 Comments

nina_johnson865d ago

Oh, I heard those Arduino ones can be really finicky with cold batteries.

jessicac286d ago

Honestly, most cheap intervalometers actually have a max of 99 exposures before they stop, so you're lucky it ran for two hours without resetting. I had a $50 Neewer one that would lock up after about 45 minutes of continuous shooting in the cold. Tbh, if you're using a Dobsonian for astrophotography, you might want to look into guiding because tracking drift is probably messing up those 30 second exposures more than bumping the scope ever did.

carr.gavin6d ago

Friend of mine tried the Arduino route for a DIY intervalometer and said it worked great till the battery died after an hour in the cold. @jessicac28 makes a solid point about the tracking drift though, my cheap 8 inch Dob wobbles enough that anything over 20 seconds shows streaking even with good polar alignment. That Neewer issue sounds brutal, I almost grabbed one off Amazon but read reviews saying the same thing about lockups below freezing.