[pvelez (Pete)]

My ST8300 has arrived. I haven't had the chance to use it in anger yet.

So far, I have been learning how to drive it. I've also been running a few tests to see how it stacks up against the SBIG specs.

SBIG records readout noise at ~10e RMS. My tests get me to 10.6 so thats spot on.

I'm intrigued by the dark current level. The specs have it at < 0.5e at 0C. Running mine at -10C, I get it down to 3.7e per second. Has anyone else tried this? I'd like to know how mine compares.

To test it, I've taken a 60 second dark, subtracted a bias frame and then worked out the mean pixel value around the centre of the image. I've then divided the result by 60 to get the dark current per second.

Also, its a bit interesting taking some flats. I have an electronic panel which I sit on top of my dew shield. But the shortest exposure allowed by the camera is 0.1 seconds and that saturates the frame. So I've inserted a gey t-shirt between light source and dew shield and upped the expoure time to 2 seconds which seems to work ok. Its not perfect but it will do for the moment.

Pete