Spent three hours on a single star photo and my cat ruined it

I set up my camera in the yard on Tuesday night for a long exposure of Orion. The sky was clear and I got everything just right. After three hours, I went inside to grab a drink and left the laptop open. My cat jumped on the keyboard and closed the capture program. I came back to a black screen and no data. Has anyone else had a pet wreck a big astronomy project?

3 comments

3 Comments

logan_ellis21d ago

Honestly, it makes you wonder about the software itself. Why is a single key press allowed to shut down a three hour capture with no warning and no way to get the data back? My old DSLR just kept the photo if I pulled the battery. Maybe we need programs that lock the controls during a run, or auto-save the data every few minutes to a separate file. It shouldn't be that easy to lose everything.

pat_fisher2422d ago

Oh man, the laptop left open with the cat around is a classic mistake. I started putting my laptop on a high shelf or even in a closed cardboard box when I step away now. You could also try a wireless keyboard and keep the laptop itself totally out of reach. That three hour loss is brutal, I feel your pain.

kevin_west21d ago

My cat once walked across my keyboard and somehow ordered a $40 pizza (I found the receipt later). It's wild how these little accidents expose all the weird systems we've built.