I need help with ASI160MC Pro

masa nakamura

I recently purchased ASI1600MC-Pro, and last weekend was my first-light session.

I used APT for acquisition, with which connection went quite well and no problem downloading images but I found a strange dark artifact in every shot I made. I looked like a piece of hair or fiber in the light pass (a photo attached). So I removed the camera from my telescope (FSQ106ED) and used a can of compressed air hoping to blow it off the sensor surface. But the shots thereaftter also showed the same dark artifact. During the session I was not able to figure out what it was. Then in the morning at home I looked into the sensor again and found a whitish fiberous thing siting on the protection glass (a photo attached). I tried a number of times to blow it off, but in vain. I even used a sticky silicon to yank it out, but even with that the thing stayed there. I used this sticky silicon a number of times in the past for my EOS6D sensor successfully, and it is very strange that this did not work. The thing did not move its position or change its shape. I'm afraid the thing is on the back side of the glass...

Please let me know what I can do about it.

It will be a pity if I have to send it back for cleaning.

einari

Because of these things you take calibration frames and in this case flat frames.

Too bad if this is in the wrong side of protective glass.

Btw it is not a very good idea to use canned air to clean these, as canned air can include unwanted elements (oil etc).

masa nakamura

Is this an official comment from ZWO company?

Very disappointing if so.

I think I need to be straightforward here.

I know flat frames. I have been doing cooled ccd astrophography for 7 years already.

Flats can remove dust particle shadows, not those of huge hairy thing stuck in front of the sensor on a brand new camera.

This is a quality inspection issue of the manufacturing company.

Looking forward to further comments.

Sam@ZWO

this seems something one the CMOS surface

you can open the camera and blow it away

please do it in a clear room, otherwise more dust will come

another way is open the air socket(protected with one blank tape) and blow it away with one air-blow

this way maybe more easy and effective

einari

I'm sorry.

I didn't know that this forum was only for official ZWO replies.

And I didn't know that you have done astrophotography for 7 years.

masa nakamura

Dear Einari,

No need to be sorry. Thanks for the message.

Since this is ZWO forum, when I posted the help request, I was expecting someone from ZWO to write a reply. I meant no offense to you. Sorry.

Actually, I already tried to cancel out the shadow with flat frames but I just couldn't. Perhaps the flats weren't good...

In general FSQ106ED has a very flat field especially in the middle of its field, so if there was no shadow like that, i think I could do without flat frames and get fine results.

This is one of the reasons why I am disappointed with the problem I posted.