The private equity firm that carved Truesense out of Kodak is now flogging it off (no surprise there.) It will be interesting to see if the new owners are willing to invest in the business.
This could be a blessing in disguise. ON Semi is no small fry, has 19,000 employees and in 2013 placed #19 in the Top20 worldwide for semiconductor sales, albeit with a 0.9% market share.
It used to be part of Motorola.
They acquired Sanyo back in 2011 and also:
"In February 2011, ON Semiconductor completed the acquisition of the CMOS Image Sensor Business Unit from Cypress Semiconductor, for $31.4M"
Their CMOS sensors: http://www.onsemi.com/PowerSolutions...s.do?id=101682
agree, it seems a good move. I assume that the private equity firm was mainly interested in tidying up the company and temporarily maxing the bottom line - so R&D would have been focused on maximising yield and minimising costs on current designs, not taking a punt on new stuff.
the new owner looks quite progressive with a focus on CMOS - could be good news for our tiny market.
ON Semi have come through with a 'new' sensor.
It's not a 'from the ground-up' new design, but I think it shows they are interested in scientific imaging sensors. http://www.flicamera.com/51.html
It will be interesting to see the datasheet for the 'new' sensor.
The datasheet for the non-microlensed version shows a peak QE of 25% from 550 to ~580nm, and approx. 19% at the Ha wavelength of 656nm, and ~20% at the OIII wavelength of 500nm(see attached)
Looking at the graph for the KAF-8300 mono version with no cover glass, the microlenses increase QE by approx. 75% at ~656nm, taking the non-microlensed 8300 from ~28% to ~49% QE, and about 100% gain at 500nm, taking it from ~28% to ~56%.
I'm not sure it works this way, but if we translate these to the 50100 the QE should be somewhere in the region of 33% for Ha and 40% for OIII.
Last edited by MrB; 11-08-2014 at 04:12 PM.
Reason: 'colver' glass?
I have been told by FLI that performance is similar to 8300 and 16803. I would suggest more like KAI11002 - around 50% QE and probably 25% in Ha or so.
Enough to make some lovely widefield images. Well depth is around 45,000 electrons which is less than half of a 16803 at around 100,000 but still plenty given the 8300 is only about 25000 and the Sony ICX694 is only 20000 or less.
The downside is it needs 65mm filters which if you get Astrodon then LRGB plus 5nm Ha is US$3105. Ouch. The Proline 50100 is US$15,995 plus exchange rate conversion shipping and GST.
You would really need to check out your scopes corrected circle as this one will need around 65mm. If its far away from the end of the scope of a fast scope it may need even more. AP refractors, TEC refractors, perhaps FSQ106 (not sure).
6 micron pixels would be a good match for 1500mm focal length or less.
This is a medium format sized chip and this chip is used in Hassalblad medium format cameras ($40000 or so).
You would really need to check out your scopes corrected circle as this one will need around 65mm. If its far away from the end of the scope of a fast scope it may need even more. AP refractors, TEC refractors, perhaps FSQ106 (not sure).
FSQ-106ED at native f/5 has an 88mm image circle. With reducer or extender it's only 44mm.
I'd be interested to see how you go, as I have an RB67 I'd like to hang offmy FSQ, but as far as I can tell, tak only made adapters for the mamiya 645? Not sure how you're gong to get the rz on there. I was thinking of picking up another extension tube, and getting 'someone' to machine the lens end to fit the FSQ.
Cheers,
Andrew
I've offered to send one of my lenses across to him, in case he needs it for the figuring/machining.
I don't imagine this to be a cheap exercise. It cost me a $105 + postage for an adapter to connect my STL-11000M to the Extender-Q 1.6x varitube. This will likely be closer to $200.
Don't suppose we'll get a group discount, but that sounds OK. I'd love to see what it could do, and we can still get 120 roll transparency here cheaply enough.
Cheers,
Andrew.
I got a reply from Ashley. Sadly, it's not in the positive.
He said that they don't make SLR/DSLR adapters as they can be purchased off the shelf, and, provided me links to B&H and Fotodiox. I'd have thought that as it was a fairly specialised item (not everyone owns a Takahashi telescope) that they'd be into building this type of thing.
I had already looked at OPT, B&H, Anacortes and Fotodiox before I sent my query, as well.
OK, who here has the skills and know-how to build an adapter?
