How much should I stress about dust?

I've been working with an SPC900 for a few years now and despite taking all measures I can to keep the IR filter and the sensor clean, dust has accumulated on both surfaces. It's very noticeable when using the camera on the sun and I've definitely seen the effects in planet videos.

I pretty much accept that keeping the corrector plates on my two OTA's clean is impossible so I appreciate that some dust will always be an issue. However, surely taking flats is only useful to a point?

Do any of you have dust preventing strategies or do you simply not worry too much about it and take flats frequently?

I have a dmk41.
I clean it each time I use it as dust shows quite clearly when solar imaging.
Mainly use an air blower.
Occasionally, need to use a cotton bud.
Nothing to fear re cleaning it.

ya, cotton buds are great for cleaning the sensor, but you need to be careful as you can actually make it dirtier. I always remove any big dust particles from my toucam sensor as needed.
In contrast, a little bit of dust on a sct corrector will have no visible effect on an image.

martinus wrote: Do any of you have dust preventing strategies or do you simply not worry too much about it and take flats frequently?

To an extent, it depends on the equipment. I have a sealed (nitrogen)CCD so any dust on the chip is there forever (and there seems to be one or two particles). Cleaning CCD windows (if you have one) is much the same as cleaning other optical elements - be careful and only do it if you really need to. Both Dave and Michael offer good advice. I've certainly been in the position were I made matters worse but a second more diligent clean fixed the issue.

I recall there being a calculator - for any image, you could measure any dust donuts or particles (diameter) and it would calculate how far from the CCD surface the donut was. Good to tell if it was on a filter or the CCD winodw or further afield (e.g. flattener). I'm afraid I don't know where I recall it from... Perhaps a search would find it?

Initially, I would advise taking regular flats until the donuts became way too numerous and problematic.

HTH
Dave