Flares, none last night thank you!!

A nice day all day, and Heavens Above were predicting 2 good flares, Mag -4 and -8. As evening wore on, some cloud started moving in to spoil the view, typical. I setup the SatCatcher anyway on the off chance that the flares might burn through the cloud. The first one at 2238 I managed to take a lovely picture of a cloud bank and no sign of the Flare. The young moon was up and looked rather ethereal in amongst the ribbons of cloud, so I snapped a shot of that to capture the Earthshine.



Just over an hour later, I headed back out again for an attempt on the second flare. I got everything setup even though the cloud was much heavier, double and triple checked all the bearings and exposure settings on the SatCatcher. Triggered the shutter on the offchance, the flare just managed to burn through at it's brightest for about 2 seconds, which I did see. The camera stopped the exposure after 30 seconds, and I checked to see what I'd caught. Nothing, the screen was blank. Damn, what had gone wrong with the camera. I checked, all looked ok, then I realised, I'd left the damn lens cap on, ARRGHH!!!. I'm not to disappointed as the flare was pretty dismal thanks to the clouds, but if I'd done this on a clear night, that would be a different kettle of fish.

Another in the note to self category, when checking the setup is good, make sure the aperture is clear of caps and obstructions.