I recently purchased a used STL 11000 camera from Astromart and am pairing it with a Tak FSQ-106, a classic astrophotography combo. The resulting pictures have significant blooming in the form of teardrop stars. Even medium brightness stars are showing blooming artifacts. I have read online that I can take the camera apart and adjust the anti-blooming gate, but I am worried this will decrease the sensitivity of the camera or, even worse, damage the camera while trying to make the adjustment. The previous owner says he did not have any issues with blooming while he had the camera. I know there are software solutions out there for de-blooming images, but I don't think people with this setup generally need to resort to that. So my questions are: how should I proceed? Should I attempt to adjust the ABG myself? Thanks in advance for the time. -Joe
What you really would be adjusting is the substrate voltage. I can't say that I would encourage a user to adjust it, but Bill may be able to provide some guidance on how to do so.
