Mysteries of the Atik 4000

[ollypenrice]

Well, we have been imaging here with the new Atik 4000 and the results are very exciting. I won't post them because they are not mine but those of a guest - I hope to get some up in the next day or two, however. Unfortunately the large chip does cry out for a Tak FSQ... Oh dear, oh dear! Can I do it?

But an interesting thing has turned up; taking flats caused a run of all-black screens - no signal at all showing on the captue software.

Reboot, take darks with the scope lens cap on, nothing would bring the camera back to life. And then we took it out, put its own metal cap back over the chip window, and voila, normal darks reappeared. This turns out to apply consistently so it was not down to coincidence.

Someone out there will suss this out better than I can, but maybe the chip can oversaturate, shut down, and refuse to restart till given absolute darkness again. The scope in question was a TeleVue with screw on metal cover and the filterwheel a light-proof Atik electric but it was not dark enough to re-launch communication between chip and capture software, so it seems.

Anybody had this effect before?

Olly