New addition to Eagleview Observatory arrived on Friday...
A shiny new Starlight Xpress TRIUS PRO-814 Blue Edition
This camera is essentially the same as my current Starlightxpress TRIUS PRO-694 Blue Edition but with smaller pixels @ 3.69micron vs 4.54micron. This change equates to a 20% finer image scale, dropping me from 0.84"/pix down to 0.68"/pix which should allow me to take better advantage of the improved atmospheric steadiness, experienced up at Eagleview, especially on the good nights. The increased sampling should also make deconvolution more effective, all translating to higher resolution images and via a simple swap over of camera bodies, everything else should stay the same
OK, so, why not a CMOS you may ask...? well, firstly and biggy for me (
), it'll be a simple one step swap over, unscrew old camera, screw on new camera, grab some new flats with my flat panel and
voila, start imaging! Nothing else changes, no new software or drivers, nuttin. Then, on a more technical side, this CCD has very low read noise, comparable with CMOS, but allows true on-chip binning and incredibly low dark current, so I can maintain the no need for darks (just dither guide and median combine in processing). There is also no need to play with gain settings either as this is optimised for each sensor at the factory, to get the best out of the camera, it saves a lot of experimenting! (again..I'm lazy) and this also optimises the full well depth to get maximum dynamic range. With CMOS, as soon as you increase the gain, you reduce the full well depth, which compromises your dynamic range. While not my focus, the CCD is also very linear in its response, so perfect for scientific measurements like photometry and spectroscopy (always imagined settling into some of this in my retirement..?
). Good CCD cameras, like this one and the others from Starlight Xpress, still have a strong place in science and astronomy.
More details on this camera can be found
here
Mike