Venus & Mercury

[Psychobilly]

Venus and Mercury

Nikon D200 with AF-S Nikkor 70-300 VRII @ 232mm

ISO100 -0.5EV 6s @ f13

And a sensor badly in need of cleaning so a bit of work was needed with the spot healing brush....

Quick "wet" Clean with some Eclipse and a swab....

Nikon D200 with AF-S Nikkor 70-300 VRII @ 77mm

ISO280 -2.5EV 3s @ f4.8

Peter...

[Hawklord]

Looks like you have clear skies there Peter? A lovely shot.

I think the Weather Gods heard me swearing at them. Eventually the clouds cleared for a short spell at 9pm, just about long enough to drag the kids and camera out for a quick look!

Canon + Tamron 70mm; ISO 1600, 4s at F4.

And the weather now?..................Clouds and rain of course

[Psychobilly]

There's the odd cloud around and not the clearest of skies but will do to checkout the setup...

Just trying the Dual DSLR setup with both cameras under the control of APT...

Peter...

[markckram]

Nice shot Peter, love the colour of the sky and its starkness silhoueted against the hils and powerlines

[Kokatha man]

Like the composition of that one Peter!

I live in a very windy and dusty area and had no end of trouble with splotches and crud on my sensors.....and cleaning them properly was a real chore, involving repeated cleanings in a row to get it semi-reasonable.

About 6 to 8 months ago I used one of my "Arctic Butterfly" cleaning swabs on it (they're for my Canon dslr) and it cleaned the darn thing perfectly with one swab passed over the DBK sensor using one edge/size and flipping over the swab to present an unused portion and passing over the sensor once more - to me a blumming miracle at the time!!!:)

From then on I've kept the camera in one of those ziplock plastic lunchbags and always have the camera pointing downwards whan I take the endcap off to put extension tubes and/or different barlows onto it.....used it umpteen times in the intervening period and it still doesn't have a trace of crud on the sensor....!

Obviously those dslr cleaning swabs are hot stuff for cam sensor cleaning.....and I think it's keeping the cam in a sealed placcy bag that has maintained its cleanliness!

Just thought I'd put this in your thread seeing you mentioned sensor crud.....

[brianb]

I've kept the camera in one of those ziplock plastic lunchbags and always have the camera pointing downwards whan I take the endcap off to put extension tubes and/or different barlows onto it

Better still - get a clear glass "filter" & leave it on permanently. This is what I do; I haven't gleaned the sensor on my frequently used DMK41 for about 9 months & it's still spotless.

[Kokatha man]

Better still - get a clear glass "filter" & leave it on permanently. This is what I do; I haven't gleaned the sensor on my frequently used DMK41 for about 9 months & it's still spotless.

Sound advice Brian - I've always kept the iR/uV filter on the end of it though - except for the inevitable and quite often need to remove it to add or subtract extension tube: thought about a helical type unit to assist this task even though with 2 X 1" ET's screwed on you can slide the lot in and out of a barlow to vary total ET length quite a bit.....and I've often had to do take off the filter and add/subtract tubing in the field (sometimes quite windy!)

It's most probably stupid but all this had me wondering whether the possibility of dust ingress is possible through the "sealed box" unit of the camera, as the only thing I'm doing different since I haven't needed to clean my sensor in "who-knows-when" is the ziplock bag.....but your own experiences would seem to suggest it is simply just good cleanliness procedure/care that is assisting me....!:)

[brianb]

I've always kept the iR/uV filter on the end of it though - except for the inevitable and quite often need to remove it to add or subtract extension tube

With mine, the clear glass filter stays on the nosepiece, I use a 1.25" push fit extension tube when necessary (with my Solarscope ... I'd rather use an extension tube than a diagonal!)

And the clear glass filter is not a UV/IR filter ... I quite often image in UV or IR and one of these would kill the transmission. The one I use is the Astronomik "klar glas" which transmits down to about 350nm and well into the infra red. If I need UV/IR suppression one of those gets threaded on as well, or I use the "luminance" filter from the RGB set in my filter wheel.

[Kokatha man]

Yep - understand your setup Brian.....having a "push fit" ET certainly assists in that regard.....naturally I have to remove the iR/uV when I use a 740nM iR.....and when I want to alter the length of the ET.....which made me wonder why the darn sensor was staying so clean what with "in field" changing etc.....though I think I'm much more carefull than much earlier when I was literally cursed with sensor crud issues: it could even be 9 or more months since I have had to clean it, and it is still spotless....!

Regarsd, Darryl.

[cyroflame]

Very nice shot peter i really like the composistion of the background against the foreground!