More dust? Issues

[Matt S]

These seem to be ruining my shots now - the attached is the laptop view of my scope/camera pointed at the moon. 
 

With the barlow attached the spots are much more obvious and darker. 
 

should I be doing any flat type frames to remove these? Or should I get on with cleaning. 
 

The scope is a Skymax-127, so luckily it’s just the front glass that’s the most likely source… but I imagine it’s going to be a constant battle if I’m constantly needing to clean?!

 

 

[ONIKKINEN]

None of the dust motes you see here are on the scope itself, the optical elements are simply too far away for dust motes on them to cast shadows this small. Dust on the front meniscus lens, primary and secondary will be invisible on the sensor so cleaning them wont fix this. These are almost certainly on the sensor window itself, or at the furthest on a filter (if you have one) within a few centimeters of the sensor based on how small they look.

Personally have not bothered to shoot flats when doing lunar or planetary and have just cleaned the sensor window if i see dust spots like this. If you keep getting dust on your sensor you could fit a nosepiece with a threaded in UV/IR or similar wide filter on it to act as another dust protection layer. You would still have to make sure everything between the sensor and the filter is dust free, but once it is you have less of a cleaning operation remaining.

[Matt S]

Thanks - I’d not actually thought it was the camera (it’s pretty new, and ‘looked’ clean). 

Will give the window a blow/clean and see if that improves things.