51.6Mbit FLI Camera.

[Tandum]

Saw Greg spruiking FLI cameras, again, and went to have a look at the FLI site. http://www.flicamera.com/fli/proline.html Check out Front Illuminated PL-50100 ... 51.6 mega pixel tripple cooled.

[Benny L]

would be good to mess around with.. 6 micron pixels it would be well suited to a wide field instrument like takahashi's FSQ106 or ASA's astrographs

it barely gets over 25% QE though so it means long exposures :S

[Tandum]

didn't notice the chart ... I need a bigger monitor :)

[renormalised]

$20500US....at just a straight conversion (no add ons), that's roughly $25000AUD. With everything else, it's 1 x 10^15AUD (that's with the 20000% markup by the wholesaler out here, as he wants to buy that new mansion at Potts Point and the Veyron in 2hrs time).

For that camera, you want something big and fast...say a 24", f3 astrograph:D

[marki]

Why stop at a tiny 24". If you can afford to spend that much on a camera why not go for a 100" or bigger scope :P:D

Mark

[Benny L]

he was getting there, you can use the 24" as a finder scope! :P

[AlexN]

I am not certain, as I've not looked at the FLI site in a few weeks now, and I didnt take that much notice the first time.. but not only is the 51mp FLI camera very low QE, but I think its also colour only... I know the 39mp one is colour only for sure..

Best option - FLI (either Proline or Microline) 16803 - 16mp, high QE, very large sensor, very usable 9 micron pixels..

[renormalised]

Well, a 24" RCOS cost US$95000...a 100" would cost somewhere around US$4million, and that's just the scope!!!. Let alone the mount and everything else!!!:eyepop::P:D

US$95000 + US$20500 = "affordable":P

US$4million = "insanely" expensive and "big lotto" territory!!!!:eyepop::P:D

[marki]

Carl, you wouldn't let a little thing like money get in the way of your wild fantasies would you :P:D.

Mark

[gregbradley]

There is a mono version of the 50 megapixel. But the low QE is a turn off.

Also the file size would be enormous. Richard Crisp has done some images using the Proline 39 megapixel colour and they had huge files. Gigabytes for a usual image. Still the images look less than what you get with the 16803 chip.

So as far as I can see with Kodak the 16803 and 8300 chips are the cream of the current crop. The 09000 chip suffers badly from ghost images (residual bulk images or RBI).

The proline and Apogee both have an RBI annihilator but it requires Maxin DL to run it and it also increases the noise as it consists of preflashing the chip with infrared before the exposure to saturate the substrate and it needs excellent cooling so that charge does not leak unduly during your long exposure. It does add to the noise regardless so preferable not to use it unless your getting ghost images from a previous bright exposure. Another reason why powerful cooling is ideal for CCD imaging.

My Proline 16803 is almost noiseless at -35C more so than my excellent Apogee U16M I swapped for it. Also it cools to -35C in about 8 minutes versus approx. 30 minutes for the U16M. The Microline 8300 cools 57C below ambient and will hit -40C on a 13C night in about 5 minutes or less and is virtually noiseless.

Greg

[renormalised]

It's a case of the law of diminishing returns. Your eyes can't tell the difference between a 16Mp and a 50Mp image, simply because you can't seed detail that fine. If you had the visual acuity of an eagle, then yes, you could. But, since we never evolved with that sort of vision, then it's moot having all those pixels. If it were a case of colour discrimination, then that's a different matter entirely. Even there 24bit colour is about the limit...32bit at a push. With astro-images, 16bit is really all you need to get great piccies. 24bit would even be excessive in most objects and 32bit would be way over the top. You're not going to get that much variation in a celestial object (except maybe a planet, asteroid or satellite) that you're going to need 4.3 billion separate colours (32bit). It's mostly contrast and brightness that varies in these pics, and the changes in these characteristics within an object.

[Octane]

The difference is in print size.

A 50 megapixel camera will deliver enormous prints, billboard size, most likely.

Regards,
Humayun

[AlexN]

H is right, the best reason for going anything above say, 6~8mp is so that you can print out REALLY REALLY large images.a 5D mk2 DSLR at 15.5mp or there abouts will allow very large prints. A2~A0 with no worries at all.. I know my 6mp images can be printed nearly 100cm by 70cm.. thats quite a large print.. a 50mp camera could print out extremely large images... I personally do not see the need to print any bigger than the 16803 chip would allow... We're talking a 180x180cm image EASY... thats a BIG print.

[gregbradley]

I don't really know here but I remember a thread on another group where the increase in megapixels before it was noticeable in an image had to be substantial like almost double before it was apparent.

17 megapixels from the 16803 is basically very fine. There is a 16000 chip that is the same size as the 11002 but smaller pixels. It doesn't seem to have taken off and become that popular (it has lower QE).
But the argument for it would be finer resolution. Images I have seen from then do seem a bit finer and it is noticeable. But at the cost of lower QE?

As far as 50mp goes, the chip is bigger than the 16803 but not massively so, its not double. I think it would need 65mm filters as well and you can get a filter wheel from FLI for 65mm filters. Not sure who sells 65mm filters though.

From a more practical point of view you would almost need a super computer to process the images though. Its slow enough processing 16803 images when a 1x1 image is 32mb each.

I need an I7 chipped computer!

What's Harvey Normans number?? hehehe

Greg.

[Benny L]

I've seen billboards done with a 3mp DSLR ;) the trick is interpolation software like Genuine Fractals, plus the fact that bliiboards are printed at like 4dpi which looks like crap, just splotches of ink, but at 100feet away they look great. :thumbsup:

[renormalised]

I think this 51.6Mp camera is going to be solely the domain of professional imagers. Unless you had cause to print monstrous images, there'd be no need for it. Mind you, it'd be great for making wallpaper for your house:eyepop::P:D:D

[renormalised]

Why buy an i7 when you can knock up a beowulf cluster with a few cheapies and a linux distro:D:D

[Benny L]

i think it would be something that the AAO would slap on the back of the UKST and use it as a survey instrument for documenting Integrated Flux Nebulae or something..

[mithrandir]

Company plug. If your pocket is a bit deeper:

http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_projects.nsf/pages/bluegene.index.html

"The Blue Gene/L machine was designed and built in collaboration with the Department of Energy's NNSA/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and the LLNL system has a peak speed of 596 Teraflops. Blue Gene systems occupy the #4 (LLNL Blue Gene/L) and #5 (Argonne Blue Gene/P) positions in the TOP500 supercomputer list announced in November 2008"