shutters

[David Ouellette]

Posted to CCD-world:
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I had some experience with 6 inch aperture Bencher shutters many years ago for a non-CCD application.  In general it
was a painful experience.  They failed to operate reliably at the telescope in the winter; the linkages wore out very quickly;
and the leaf pivots wore out, all in about 1 year with a duty cycle an order of magnitude  less than a CCD exposure control
shutter would go through.  I can't say I'd recommend them, but that was a long time ago and things may have changed.

I was fortunate enough to land a 6 inch shutter from the military surplus piles.  It had no mechanical driver associated
with it, so I had to make that, but as a starting point it was/is a wonderful device-- 12 leaves, very smooth.  Originally used
for aerial photography I think.  Maybe some day we'll come up with a "standardized" large aperture shutter...??


Dave

David Ouellette
Steward Observatory
CCD Laboratory
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ  85721-0065

douellette at as.arizona.edu
Phone  (520) 621-5228      Fax 626-4330

Web Page http://sauron.as.arizona.edu/ccdlab/

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