[UBoat]

I'm still looking for an uncooled imaging camera to use when hiking under dark skies; and trying to assess the range of exposure times that are possible for the SX Ultrastar before making a purchase. I've compared with the Infinity camera and note the latter is limited to exposure times of two minutes because it's optimised for live viewing. The Ultrastar uses the same chip as the Infinity but uses much less electrical power. So I'm not sure that the comparison is fair and I'm wondering if the Ultrastar can mange longer exposures.

Optcorp show a specification that says the Full Well Capacity (FWC) is greater than 23,000 e- unbinned, that the Dark Frame Saturation Time is greater than one hour and the dark current less than 0.1 electrons/ second at +10C ambient. The dark current value implies a Dark Frame Saturation Time of about 60 hours. This is similar to the uncooled performance at 17degC of my ATIK 314L+ that loses about 3% of its dynamic range to dark current with an hours exposure time.

On the basis of that specification the comparison with my Atik314 and the Ultrastar low power consumption I would assess that exposures of an hour rather than two minutes would be feasible with an Ultrastar but I'm cautious because Optcorp are so conservative in simply saying 'greater than an hour to full well capacity' when their specification suggests 60 hours.

My assessment is naive so I'd be glad if anyone can correct or confirm my interpretation and/or say what exposure times the SX Ultrastar is capable of?

Thanks, Peter