Select a system with little or no registered settlers, look for an unnamed planet above 0oC and below 200oC without a starport or station and unload your MB4. Wait a few months and land near your mining equipment. Pick it up and leave. If you try again at the same place you will find less and the third time you will find nothing. This is not dependent on the time you let your machine work or the amount of minerals the machine has produced. Only the number of trials counts.
A builtin camera (you get it for your first reconnaissance mission) does not prevent you from using the mining machines. Just use the camera icon in the near of the mining machine. Frontier will know, that you don't want to take pictures.