Silent shooting

[Nigel C]

Hi all,

Having finally managed to move to guiding last night and now would like to use as many clear nights as I can to get to grips with PHD2 and try different targets.  However.....

Living in a semi in suburban Bristol I am very conscious of trying to do everything quietly as the best place for my set up is very close to the adjoining semi.     So my concern (apart from when PHD2 looses alignment and starts audibly beeping - obviously I will now turn OFF the sound on my laptop) is that when I am leaving the camera to capture say 40 frames then the noise of the mirror on my Canon DSLR being raised and lowered with each shot is a concern.  I could obviously move to a CCD but I would like to start getting some good images using the DSLR first.

So I have 2 questions:

1 - Does any of the capture software allow the mirror to be raised and stay raised until you have completed all of your shots - thus minimising the noise.

2 - Any other good ideas to generally reduce the noise levels during a late night / early morning shoot.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

Nigel

[Shelster1973]

Like you, I image from my backgarden, close to other houses. Have not really noticed the clack noise being that obtrusive really. If you think about it, it will only be happening twice every 3 mins or longer depending on what subs you are taking. Would also be worth setting it up in the day to take images and go inside and listen out for the noise. If you cant hear it then the neighbour will more than likely not be able to hear it to.

With regards to software, BYE (BackYardEOS) has a mirror lock function, but as I am a Nikon user, am not sure how this works. The functionality for the mirror lock up is not yet working on BYN

[RichM63]

Good for you, but I can't imagine that a shutter firing is likely to disturb a neighbour. Cursing as you trip over a cable might though.

Where I am it is totally silent except for Owls and things that snuffle around, but from 10yds away I can't really notice a shutter firing and certainly not from indoors.

Look forward to seeing some of your guided results.

Best,

Rich

[Demonperformer]

I image from my front garden, right under my terraced-neighbour's bedroom window (all right, about 6' to the left of it), which (unsurprisingly) tends to be left open during summer nights. I have made it known that if I ever disturb them (setting up, taking down, or whatever) to let me know, and I have never had any complaints.

If you are on good terms with your neighbour, I would think a courtesy "Let me know if I disturb you and I will do something about it" is all that will be required.

[wxsatuser]

I don't worry about noise as it's noisey round my way till at least 1am.

10 feet from the obsy and nothing can be heard anyway.

[Nigel C]

Thanks all - I guess its just that at midnight every sound seems magnified.  I will speak to my neighbour and hope she doesn't say 'now that you mention it........'

You are right about tripping over cables.  At the moment my set up is very ad-hoc and I seem to have load of cables not helped by the fact that I have 2 laptops in use one for capturing (Macbook) and a very old Vista machine running PHD2.  I cant run PHD2 on the MAC as there are no MAC drivers for QHY5L-II  and the Vista machine is barely coping with PHD.  I have instead ordered a refurbished Dell Latitude Windows 7 to run all software on - that will simplify things a bit.  However I am now realising that the 600D I'm using only just lasts an hour and a half with a fully charged battery (I guess that's due to long exposures, the cold etc) and so may need to go to mains power for the camera... 

[Pompey Monkey]

Thanks all - I guess its just that at midnight every sound seems magnified.  I will speak to my neighbour and hope she doesn't say 'now that you mention it........'

You are right about tripping over cables.  At the moment my set up is very ad-hoc and I seem to have load of cables not helped by the fact that I have 2 laptops in use one for capturing (Macbook) and a very old Vista machine running PHD2.  I cant run PHD2 on the MAC as there are no MAC drivers for QHY5L-II  and the Vista machine is barely coping with PHD.  I have instead ordered a refurbished Dell Latitude Windows 7 to run all software on - that will simplify things a bit.  However I am now realising that the 600D I'm using only just lasts an hour and a half with a fully charged battery (I guess that's due to long exposures, the cold etc) and so may need to go to mains power for the camera... 

My golden rule for this is: Never, never walk between the 'scope and the table.

Doesn't help for the trailing garden hose though.

[glowingturnip]

2 - Any other good ideas to generally reduce the noise levels during a late night / early morning shoot.

avoid gravel !  I got into big problems with the wife for crunching backwards and forwards across the gravel outside the bedroom window at 3am when packing all the stuff away at the end of a session !

[MattJenko]

If you get a CCD then you have cooling fans constantly on, which are much noisier than the DSLR camera click - at least with my fan for my little CCD.

[D4N]

I removed the mirror from my DSLR, less clunking and less vibration

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Aeseir]

I image with a 40d and i can tell you even in dead of night, once you move more than 3 meters away the sounds is minute.

I image near my bedroom window (so i can keep an eye out for equipment due to local wildlife) and even when its open, there is no sound (its about 5 meters away from setup).

Unless you got a very heavy mirror the sound it makes every X minutes would be minute, and if anything would sound more like a cricket doing its thing in the night rather a mechanical device.

[Marky1973]

I can hardly hear the click when I am inside so doubt my neighbour can... and it is certainly quieter than when I dropped the metal lens cover on the driveway....

[wxsatuser]

Thanks all - I guess its just that at midnight every sound seems magnified.  I will speak to my neighbour and hope she doesn't say 'now that you mention it........'

You are right about tripping over cables.  At the moment my set up is very ad-hoc and I seem to have load of cables not helped by the fact that I have 2 laptops in use one for capturing (Macbook) and a very old Vista machine running PHD2.  I cant run PHD2 on the MAC as there are no MAC drivers for QHY5L-II  and the Vista machine is barely coping with PHD.  I have instead ordered a refurbished Dell Latitude Windows 7 to run all software on - that will simplify things a bit.  However I am now realising that the 600D I'm using only just lasts an hour and a half with a fully charged battery (I guess that's due to long exposures, the cold etc) and so may need to go to mains power for the camera... 

My setup just records to SD in camera the 60Da is mains powered and camera control is intervalometer.

Mains power is a good idea as it's one thing you can forget about.

One Samsung i3 6gig WIN 7 lappie runs CDC, EQMOD and PHD 1.

I don't use the HEQ5 handset but have an Xbox wireless hand control for target adjustment.

I use an Altair 60mm guidescope/side by side bar with an Orion  SSAG.

Current setup with a Sigma 105mm macro lens, mount parked in home postion.

[brrttpaul]

Have to be honest I tried imaging the other night and thats when it occured to me that I might be disturbing my neighbours  with the mirror . I listened out and could hardly hear it  from 3 metres away,

[MarsG76]

Hello Nigel,

I use a modded Canon 40D and a unmodded 7D on my setup, I find the shutter release is very quiet, any neighbor complaining has other issues.

If you're worried about the camera shake due to the mirror movement then there is a feature in the menu to turn on "Mirror lock up" which will first lock up the mirror then on second press of the shutter start the exposure. That said I don't use this feature, do 30 minute subs at low ISO when doing narrowband imaging and I never had a ruined sub because of a mirror related shake. 

[nightster]

I used the mirror lock up feature of BYEOS on my 450d and it gave my subs horrible amp glow and I lost a valuable clear dry night imaging M45 because of unmanageable gradients on all 45 subs. Do your researc and find out if your camera will produce amp glow during mirror lock up.

[glowingturnip]

I used the mirror lock up feature of BYEOS on my 450d and it gave my subs horrible amp glow and I lost a valuable clear dry night imaging M45 because of unmanageable gradients on all 45 subs. Do your researc and find out if your camera will produce amp glow during mirror lock up.

i think that's because BYEOS will be simulating mirror lock-up by keeping live-view turned on, which runs the amps