TIL my phone died at 2am in Joshua Tree and I got the best Milky Way shot I own on a 15 second guess
Two years back I was stacking 40 shots on my laptop at home and fighting with a tracking mount that never sat level, so half my nights ended with nothing usable. Last month my phone battery died out in the desert and I had no idea what exposure I was dialing in, so I just opened the shutter for 15 seconds and hoped. That single frame has smoother stars and better color than anything I stacked for hours in my driveway. It made me wonder if I have been overcomplicating this the entire time. Does anyone else get better results from one quick shot than a full night of stacking?
That 15 second guess thing hits home so hard. I spent weeks learning stacking software and messing with dark frames, then got a cleaner shot last summer just pointing my camera up and counting to 12. Sometimes dumb luck beats all the gear and math.