Strange vertical lines in STXL6303

I've recently started using my STXL 6303 again after a long trouble free period of using the 16200. I've noticed on some images that I get strange vertical streaks emanating from bright stars in the field (NB: these are not blooms). This only happens intermittently. I've attached one of the sub-frames from a series of 1 second exposures of Beta Centauri that shows what happens although sometimes you get a fainter streak extending upward from the star too. Someone suggested that this might be a shutter problem. BTW I have updated the firmware, apparently successfully, although I may not have been using the absolutely latest version of driver checker.

Any thoughts?

Steve

 

It's a Paramount ME so I doubt that the drive is crappy. Have been imaging for a while without any problem but now something probably related has happened. The luminance, red and first two green sub-frames were okay but now the signal has dropped to almost zero although the guiding is perfect which you would expect given that the sensor is in front of the filter wheel. I'm suspecting a combination filter wheel/ shutter problem which I'll check out tomorrow.

 

A further update. Without investigating the hardware in detail this seems to be one sick camera. It seems to work for a while and then turns to crap. After terminating the exposure sequence described in my previous reply. I took a 30 second exposure of the cluster NGC 6231 and there are streaks off every star as can be seen in the attached image. I'm using CCD Commander linked to Maxim and there have been no strange error messages occurring which I would have expected if there was something wrong with the shutter. As I mentioned before I updated the firmware too. Another strange effect I noticed is that the image download seems to take much longer than it usually does.

 

Yes although I don't recall ever having power problems before


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The power supply is connected directly. It's only the other cables that are connected through the mount.

Latest update is not good. I swapped the power supplies and now things are even worse. Streaks started appearing almost immediately whereas last night it took several hours. I don't know what's going on. Tomorrow I'll take this camera off and put the STXL16200 back on. At least I'm lucky enough to have a second camera.

I've updated an example of tonight's rubbish - omega centauri like you've never seen it before.

I can't help thinking there is something screwy with the firmware. Image downloads are really, really slow - much worse than they were before.

 

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I haven't as yet but will be doing so today


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Okay - I've taken the camera inside and set it up to do two sets of continuous series 1 second exposures, one with cooling on, one with it off all the time keeping an eye on the shutter. I saw nothing unusual. No funny noises which might indicate the shutter was catching on something - everything looked nice and smooth. Next step is that I'm putting my other camera (STXL16200) back on the scope to see what happens with it.

 

I'm starting to suspect some sort of power problem. When I mounted the 16200 on the scope and fired it up the filter wheel wouldn't connect for some reason. It was working perfectly when I removed it several weeks ago to mount the 6303.

 

Yes I do. I've tried swapping power supplies. Try it again just to make sure tomorrow.

 

Hello

The problem above seemed to go away for some reason but now it's come back. I apologize for the long delay in posting something about this but I've been preoccupied with other things. To reiterate, I use Maxim and CCD commander with the STXL6303 camera set at -30 C. I've been imaging the last two nights and it works for a while but then the streaks come back. An earlier post in this discussion shows an example. It has been fairly cold here by Australian standards which maybe suggests that something happens at a certain temperature but given that it gets much colder in the US than here I doubt that it's temperature related otherwise surely other people would be reporting it.

One significant thing I discovered was that everything works with the SkyX camera add-on - no sign of any streaks. So that suggests it's Maxim related. I don't think CCD Commander is a factor because once the streaks happen then short exposures in Maxim without using CCD Commander show the streaks.

I've tried everything suggested above I think so I'm now looking for other suggestions.

 

Yes you are probably quite correct Doug. The question is what do I do now? When I tested the shutter with a whole set of continuous exposures everything looked fine. Presumably this will eventually turn out to be something stupid given I seem to be the only one afflicted.


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