[Mickoid (Michael)]

We've been having a few good clear nights down in Melbourne this week, coinciding with the new moon for a change. Unfortunately, I start work early so sessions starting at 10.30pm and finishing about 12.00am is not a good mix. The nights have also been on the warmish side which is creating an increase in noise for my sensor. I tried increasing my subs to 4 mins and took only 5 to see if it would help to keep the sensor cooler, rather than taking thirty 40 second subs. I don't know whether this improved things because there is still a lot of noise.

I've heard that using AC power rather than the battery can help with keeping the sensor cooler but I don't know if the comparison has been documented.

So this is a shot on Tuesday night of the belt and sword in Orion taken with an old Pentax K mount 135mm f3.5 prime lens on a modded Canon 550d using a CLS CCD clip in filter. I stopped down to f5.6 to help minimize lens aberrations. I ended up with 5 x 4 min subs at 800 iso unguided on a HEQ5 pro mount from light polluted Melbourne.

Anyone got any other ideas of how to keep a camera sensor from getting too warm?