IC2948 IC2944 Thackeray's Globules

Shot in March 2010 approximately 10 hours worth of exposures.

QHY9 Shutter Silencer

Factory installed plastic stop

On my list of things to do is silencing QHY9's shutter noise. As the shutter moves from open to closed position, it hits hard against a jumper used as a stop. When going from closed to open position, it comes to a sudden stop on the side of the camera's metal casing. This whipping of the shutter back and forth creates a fairly loud tick-tock noise amplified by the resonating case. It's quite loud enough to make me worry about bothering the neighbours late at night, especially when I'm firing off 40 continous shots with Focusmax.

After taking a look at the shutter assembly , I came up with a rather simple solution. A small self-adhesive rubber feet cut in half placed carefully at the shutter travel limits. Well, not quite at the shutter travel limits, but may be half a millimeter before the original stops. Just enough to take the edge out of the shutter impacting the orginal stops. If you wanted to eliminate the noise all together then just place it further in, too easy. Things to note though,  must allow the shutter to fully cover the sensor when closed and clear the sensor when open. Also, I prefer some noise to indicate that it is working. Checkout the photos to see what I mean.

My Imaging Rig

My current imaging setup: EQ6 mount with EQDIR, GSO RC8, QHY9, QHY Filterwheel, Orion Starshoot Guider, Moonlite Focuser.

I'm hoping to replace the mount in 2011. An Astrophysics mount would be nice.

I'm also working on converting my 9x50 finder scope into a guiderscope, which will replace the white refractor sitting on top. At the same time I should be able to run with one less counterweight.