AC4040 shutter suggestion

On (quite successfully) bench-testing my new AC4040M (firmware rev 14) before first installation on scope, I noticed that the camera's shutter is left open on Disconnect if the last frame was a Light frame, the common case. Whereas, if the last frame before Disconnect was a Dark or Bias frame, the shutter is left closed, which is good. For my previous SCT scope (sealed OTA), I wouldn't care too much, but with my new open-truss OTA, this leaves the sensor (or at least the filter) exposed to the air and dust all day.

So my suggestion is first to automatically close the AC camera's shutter on Disconnect...at least as an option.

In the meantime, I can try to remember to do a Bias frame at the end of every night. (Bias is convenient, because I know I can always discard AC4040 bias images saved to disk.) But in the long run, having the shutter automatically close on Disconnect/ACP Shutdown would be much better.

Thanks!

 

Closing the shutter after significant idle time is a good idea (I don't know yet whether mine does that)--but it probably doesn't solve the concern of shutter remaining open between sessions.

(I'll confirm that my AC4040M firmware 14 does indeed close the shutter on power-up. And that's very convenient for cooling at dusk, but again not for daytime open shutter.)

By the way, during bench-testing I accidentally connected the AC4040 through a industrial, hardened USB 3.0 hub, and MaxIm seemed not even to notice, even for binning-1 downloads and the firmware update (oops). In the dome I'll run USB 3 directly to the PC, but this was a good sign of the camera's USB stability.