I have learnt during the past couple of days that I should not cool down the ccd cam in one go, instead should allow 10-20 minutes to reach the desired temperature. Could you think about a delay factor, to reach the target temperature over a period in time that can be freely chosen?
Step-by-step cooling of a CCD camera is a fairly common theory among French astrophotographers, who believe that too rapid cooling could cause damage to the CCD sensor. Since this idea is supported by a few big names in the French-speaking astro community, it has become a basic rule. I'm quite divided; when I think about it, I apply steps for cooling, but when I don't think about it, well, not much serious happens. I've browsed a lot of foreign forums, I haven't read this cooling method elsewhere. A colleague of mine applies the following rule: he drops the temperature by 5°, he waits 5 minutes. And so on, to reach -15°. His photos are superb; but is his cooling method essential? I'm not totally convinced... Otherwise, there must be a way to make a script to automate the method.
I have heard this argument before. I do not know whether it matters or not actually. I have been astro imaging with CCD's for 20 years or so and have not yet had a problem. That is not to say there will never be a problem or that anecdotal evidence should serve as evidence for something not being true. But I very frequently just turn off the cooler instead of setting a temperature and waiting for it to get there.
Anyway, you wouldn't really want to set a time to reach temperature, you would probably want to set a cooling rate or a stepwise cooling as mentioned by the last poster. For example, I don't think you would want to take the same time to cool from 40 degrees C to 0 degrees C as you would to cool from 10 degrees C to 0 degrees C.
It could certainly be implemented, but the question is in what manner to implement it and is it really needed.
Good morning, the background of my post is that I have some problems with condensation (ASI071pro) and people in the ZWO user group suggested to spread the cooling-down over 10-20 minutes, also with references the large chip.