How's This For A Photo "Gremlin"?

How many times did you think you did everything right to get the photo you wanted? Fresh hypered film, PEC trained, great seeing conditions,no wind or bugs, good guide star, object in the center of the negative, camera set to "B", focused properly and "click" you're off to the races. You have always wanted to capture the elusive Stephan's Quintet with you're C11 at prime focus (this is your third attempt). You haven't yet gone digital so you are manually guiding. The timer on the JMI-Max is running. You sneek a peek-20 minutes,40 minutes, I think I can do 60. 60 minutes pass-I'm going for my own record 80 minutes! At 80 minutes I've had enough and I should have captured something on that negative. You close up shop carrying the film inside to be developed immediately. Fresh developer-good. Negative comes out of the tank and you exclaim "What in the **** is that on the negative!" I've never seen that before! Upon closer examination, you discover that an ****in' dead bug somehow ended up on the film after the shutter was open. You open up your camera and sure enough, it falls out. Fortunately the damn thing didn't cover up the Quintet so I have an 80 minute exposure of the Quintent and a bug! This was my third and final attempt at this object with film (the other two attempts had bad focus and another missed the object entirely). I can't take it!

Chris Nisbet
Cedar, MN
1992 C11 Ultima

Attached Image:

bet you can't do that again clear sky's jim

When I started out in astrophotography I was told by an expert that there were seven things that could go wrong in astrophotography (focus, tracking, guiding, exposure, seeing, framing and composition, Gremlins.....)

With my own experiences, I have since greatly expanded the list.

Your find was not, however on my list.

Alex

No doubt about it. You've certainly got the astrophotography bug about you.

I'll get my coat.......

whoa

Here's my GREMLIN.

Pete

Attached Image:

I like it.

I didn't think the Bug Nebula was a dark nebula.