Wet cleaning, the danger of

I almost had a heart attack Friday night.  To prepare for Saturday, I checked my sensor for dusty bunnies.  I don't know how but my sensor attracts so much dust.  Everytime it's time for me to check for dust, I can be certain that there will be some annoying dust spots to clean.  If they are not visible at f/14 or so, I am usually not all too worried but these were.  So, I took out my wet cleaning kit.  I first used an air blower to remove loose particulates.  The Arctic Butterfly followed but I think it was picking up something on the side of the sensor and deposited it onto the sensor and smeared it as well.  Well, that guaranteed that I had to use a wet cleaning method then.

As usual, I opened the menu to lock the mirror up for cleaning and proceeded to do the cleaning.  My heart dropped when all of a sudden the shutter closed on me!  The PecPad covered end of the spatula was now stuck inside my camera.  I was not sure at the time what was closing down onto the spatula but it looked like the shutter door with four panels.  I managed to pull the spatula out and lucky me, the camera was still functional.  A bunch of tests showed no damage to the shutter mechanism.

I think I made the following mistake.  I once set the D7000 on manual mode, opening the aperture to shoot stars for 20 seconds.  To remove my lens, I set the mode to manual from my usual Aperture Priority mode.  When I then set the camera to cleaning mode, I must have pressed the shutter release button before actually activating the cleaning mode.  When I thought the camera had gone into sensor cleaning mode, it was actually taking a picture for 20 seconds!  What a mistake I made, one I will not forget anytime soon!