Once upon a time, there was a gnome who wanted to take pictures of the night sky.

At last—after weeks, or perhaps even months—there came a clear, almost moonless night. By a rare alignment of fate, the gnome also found the time to go outside and do some imaging. It was cold. The tripod felt like an ice cube. The gnome wired his notebook to his telescope equipment using several rather long USB cables that twisted across the ground like sleeping snakes.

Eventually, everything was connected: cameras, focuser, mount—every last device. Polar alignment was completed. The object of desire was located in the sky. The camera cooler was running, perfect focus was found, guiding was calibrated, and at last the machinery began to collect photons. The seeing was extraordinary, and the gnome was certain this session would produce glorious results.

While waiting, however, the gnome slowly began to resemble an ice cube himself. He thought longingly of a cup of hot tea in the tent. But would it be wise to leave the notebook unattended? Would the setup truly do its job? Shouldn’t the guiding be monitored? What if one of the cameras lost its connection to the computer? What if focus drifted? What if the mount limits failed and the telescope collided with the tripod in a terrible mechanical tragedy?

And so the engineer gnome decided to stay and watch. The only sounds were a distant barking dog and the gentle whirring of the mount.

About thirty minutes later, the gnome was no longer resembling an ice cube—he had become one. His fingers were stiff, and the cold began to crawl under his winter jacket. At last, he decided it was truly time for a cup of hot tea. The setup was running well, after all… so why shouldn’t it?

Inside the tent, it was cozy. The gnome enjoyed his steaming cup of tea, and for a few precious minutes, all was well. But then an uncomfortable feeling crept in. Was the setup still fine? Shouldn’t he go back and check? Just in case?

After a few minutes, he could bear it no longer. He put down his cup and went outside—just for a quick look.

When the gnome returned to the telescope, he became furious. The guiding had stopped. But why? After some investigation, he discovered that the USB connection to the guide camera had failed. Deprived of its electronic lifeline, PHD had stopped guiding in silent protest. The gnome restarted the software, hoping that only the last frame had been lost. But then he noticed something worse. The mount had lost track of the object entirely. It, too, had disconnected.

With a heavy sigh, the gnome began the alignment procedure once more. He relocated the target and tried to match the previous framing as closely as possible. By now, working at the computer had become nearly impossible—his hands were completely frozen. In the end, he lost at least one full hour of priceless imaging time to a single technical failure.

And as the mount finally resumed its slow, faithful tracking, the gnome once again asked himself the ancient and eternal question of astrophotographers everywhere:

“What in the world am I doing out here?”

And the moral of the story was this: Longer is not always better 😉