[DavidTrap (David)]

Howdy,

Looking for suggestions from as to what might be wrong with this CCD camera from an electronic point of view. I'm not going to mention brand, other than to say it's an expensive ($10000) American made camera that I expected to last longer. I work with a school and help run their remote telescope observatory. I recommended this camera based on reputation of quality and longevity - unfortunately it has failed within 3 years, albeit permanently mounted in a remote observatory.

We are faced with a return trip to America for service. Initial comments from the company indicate a service and replacement of one circuit board (there are two in the camera) would be around USD$900. Round trip shipping costs with insurance would be around AUD$500. Realistically it's a $2000 repair bill at minimum. We could replace the camera with a ZWO camera for $1999 - the ZWO camera has a newer CMOS chip and is capable of shorter exposures, so it can do some planetary & lunar imaging as well.

I have a friend who is an electronics engineer and is willing to look at the camera for us. There is a capacitor on the circuit board that looks like it might be leaking - fingers crossed that can be replaced and the problem will be solved. I'm just wondering if the collective wisdom on IIS might be able to offer him some suggestions as to what might be wrong - CCD cameras aren't necessarily his area of expertise.

I've set the camera up with a 50mm camera lens and taken some shots on the bench tonight. Regardless of exposure duration, the output from the camera is the same. If you look at the histogram for the 0.1, 1 and 10 second exposures, it's essentially identical. (If I change the aperture setting on the lens, the histogram does change as you would expect) Any suggestions as to what might be wrong with the circuitry??

Thanks in advance for any suggestions. I'm not trying to bag the company who manufactured the camera - it may well be exposure to dust and moisture that has caused the problem. I'm just trying to consider all options when recommending a course of action to the school.

DT