Mysterious star trailing solved: a cautionary tale of fan vibration with a fan cooled (especially ZWO) camera.

Rick VereginTom Marsala
26 replies639 views
Rick Veregin avatar

privateer · Nov 26, 2025, 03:01 AM

I modified my fan a few years ago and I believe it made a big difference. I was at 2000mm f7 and a fart would be noticeable. Also people push the cooling in these cameras too hard and that will also cause more vibration.
📷 IMG_3069.jpgIMG_3069.jpg

The only change you made was the rubber washers, not the ZWO fan or the screws? I did try something similar to this, leaving the screws in. I’m glad that simple change worked for you, it did not for me—perhaps your fan is not as bad. Actually I was only cooling to 0C and it was around 5 to 10 C outside at the time, so the cooling was actually quite low. I even tried 10C setting, but it was no better. There is no speed control on the ZWO fan, which is a problem when you don’t need much cooling. I was not getting any exposures with good stars at the time even with little cooling. Only turning cooling off worked for me with either ZWO fan.

Interesting to hear your experience!

Rick

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Arnie avatar

privateer · Nov 26, 2025, 03:01 AM

I was at 2000mm f7 and a fart would be noticeable.

Ha! I love it! I image anywhere between 1945mm and 3048mm from my back deck, and if one of the kids whose bedroom overlooks the deck gets up at night to walk to the bathroom, it shows up in my subs the next day!

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