By the time autumn reaches these northern shores Milkyway is at it's best. Well, actually the peak Milkyway season is around Jun/July everywhere else however being this far North reasonabe darkness only creeps in slowly around the 3rd week of August. The season then carries through till late October. By December when you start having clear cloudless sky, the nights are too cold and Milkyway isnt anymore at it's peak. But you may have aurora, meteor showers and other night time activities.
Over the past several years, my mainstay for imaging the nightsky are the Canon 6D and Sony A7S, both are fullframe cameras. I was initially using cropped bodies Canon 40D and 7D and obviously these weren't quite up to task for low light situations.
Both the fullframe bodies are coupled with several wide aperture lenses from Canon, Sigma Art and Samyang.
Canon 6D + Samyang AF85/1.4
Sony A7S + Sigma Art AF35/1.4
Milkyway in mid November 2018, it was cloudy all they way from Aug.
I also typically bring along a Sony RX100 PnS for backup. There are always nights when you realised too late that both cameras are flat out of juice and the extra batteries are either in the car at the bottom of the mountain or in the bag at the cabin. The PnS would then prove to be very useful for an idiot selfie with the Milkyway in the background!
I was a bit intimidated by the prospect of having to poke into the sensor region of the 6D, one of my mainstay camera for low light and night photography. Since I bought it many years ago I have never ventured anywhere close to the sensor much less fiddle anywhere near the sensor
After numerous lens changes, moving the camera in and out of the cold into the warmth of the car or house the sensor has picked up some dodgy looking dust and/or spots. Though it did not impact imaging of the night sky or have any grave consequences on the ensuing images, the sheer number of these imperfections have started to show up especially on narrow aperture settings shooting towards a light source or bright expanse. I have a feeling liquid condensation may also have been a culprit.
So I took the plunge. I decided to take the blow it, wet wipe it and dry cleaning it strategy. The blower to remove any potential grit or hard dust particles off the sensor, wet wipe to scrape remaining spots or mark off the sensor and the dry swipe to finish it off.
Having the sensor cleaned professionally at camera shop would cost anywhere in the region of NOK650. A set of 1x wet and 1xdry wipe costs NOK60/each. It took me 3xsets to get it all sorted out. And I'm left with 6x used wipes which I re-wet and use for external cleaning of lenses and cameras.
Before image:
After image:
I admit the issue is not fully resolved ie. it's not 100% dust/dirt free, but at least I will be able to target those remaining persistent spots in PP and maybe tackle them again in the next "sensor" cleaning session. It's only a lowpass filter coating clean up anyways ... I shouldnt be too hung up about wiping them clean now and again.
Note:
What is being swiped by the wipes is actually the lowpass filter which sits on top of the infrared absorption glass which in turn finally sits on top of the actual CMOS sensor. So if the cleaning operation really did go south there's the option of actually getting rid of that lowpass filter and turning the 6D into an astro camera (more reds in future Milkyway shots)!!!
