I have a new STX 16803 (purchased about a year ago as you were discontinuing the model, but only started to use it in November). For now, I have standardized on -10C as the temperature. I have been operating it in my backyard, where ambient temperature has ranged from roughly -7C to +10C over the past few months. The camera appears to struggle to maintain the set temperature of -10C, with variability in both directions. For example, last night I set out to build a new Dark, with 100 exposures of 10 minutes each at -10C. The ambient temperature when I started was -3C and the coldest it got last night (per my weather station) was - 7C. The first 18 frames were at -10C, the next 22 were at -11C, and the next 41 were at -12C. By then, morning had arrived, and the next 10 frames were at -11C, and then the temperature began to rise with each frame, from -10C, to -9C to -7C to -6C. At that point I stopped the sequence. This was a longer than usual sequence, but on multiple instances in the past, the camera bounces around +/- 2 degrees different (usually lower) from the set temperature. Two nights ago, I was running an 8 hour sequence across multiple targets. Ambient temperature was roughly -5C, and every single frame came in at either -11C or -12C. So a few questions: 1. For how long a sequence should the camera be able to hold temperature (it seems to "give up" after 10 or so hours). 2. How do I get it to hold a specific temperature within a single degree of accuracy across multiple frames? 3. Any ideas about what I might be doing wrong?
The cooler has a minimum power level. Ambient of +7C doesn't give it sufficient headroom to regulate. I recommend using -20C as your setpoint.
Thanks for replying so quickly. Good to know. This hobby is multitudinous in its nuances. at that temperature will an RBI flush be required between frames?
