I thought I'd ask you about these attached images. Five recent images taken on five different night with the camera cooler temperature set to five different values as I indicated. I fudged the background brightness to be approximately the same in each image so that the defects are obvious and comparable. The colder, the more defects. Has anyone ever seen anything like this before? I don't know what would cause such "regular" shapes to be produced in these images. A temperature-sensitive A/D readout problem? A mechanical stress on the detector? As long as the camera is not cooled below -20C or so, there doesn't appear to be any issue. I don't know what the humidity was on these nights, but if this is icing, I find it really weird that the defects would have such a strong linear geometric shape. I thought you'd be interested to see these. Dick
Replacement desiccant plugs are available from a third party. They aren't as good as the originals, but we don't make the originals any more. You can find them at FarPoint: https://farpointastro.com/products/sbig-camera-replacement-desiccant-plug
Hi Colin, I bought a replacement dessicant plug in 2009 along with a huge quantity of replacement desiccant pouches sealed in foil. At the time, I got these from a company called Particle Wave Technologies, for a price of $77 altogether. I see they still make certain kinds of desiccant holders, but not apparently anymore for the ST cameras. http://www.company7.com/pw/accessories/ddcap.html I have been pretty conscientious about replacing the desiccant pouch. I did this most recently sometime this past summer. I don't remember exactly when - the days go by so fast!! It's certainly possible it's time for a change, even so quickly, as we've had an enormous amount of rain this fall. To change the subject slightly, I sent my camera off to Bill Lynch this week. It has been acting flaky for a while - would sometimes not come on when the power was turned on. This was not a problem of the power supply itself, which I tested, nor a USB problem. Sometimes I get Filter Error 32; sometimes SBIG error 27 - device not found. It finally died completely and would not turn on anymore. If Bill can find the problem along the power supply lines and fix it, he will likely replace the desiccant before returning the camera. Otherwise I may be in the market for a new camera... Merry Christmas to you and your family, Colin. Regards, Dick
Hopefully he will find something easy to fix. Unfortunately none of the parts used in that camera are still manufactured, so that makes it difficult.
I hope so, too, Doug. But I have to say that the ST-7XME camera has served me well for about 17 years, so perhaps it's time to retire that one and move ahead. Well see what Bill has to say. Thank you so much for all your help this past year, Doug, with the various little problems I've presented here. I hope you and your family have a very Merry Christmas, too. Dick
Yes, the ST-7XME is a real workhorse camera. Lots of them still out there doing great work. But they are all very old now. You might be interested in our sort-of namesake camera, the STC-7. I've been using one a lot in my backyard observatory, and it's a great performer. Merry Christmas!
