I just received a status update on my deep sky camera from the SBIG service center. The technician was able to duplicate the cooling system fan failure and has replaced it. He also discovered corrosion on some of the pins on the CCD chip. The guilty pins are indicated by the red lines in the pictures below.
The technician said that corrosion on the pins is the result of repeated cycles of moisture accumulating and drying out in that part of the camera. He will clean off the corrosion and has checked the camera’s seals for air tightness integrity and has sealed a couple spots of potential leaks. Hopefully, this is the source of the intermittent pattern seen in the images. A little bit of moisture shorting some of the signals together could cause the problem. Although I re-bake the camera’s desiccant on a regular basis, it looks like I will have to increase the number of times a year I head into the kitchen.
May 142018