Audine CCD camera (home Built)

[Wombat_In_Space (Darren)]

I found this well surfing around the net the other night it is a home built CCD astro camera developed by a group of french Astronomers.

http://www.astrosurf.com/audine/English/index0.htm

Here is an Aussie astronomer who built one

http://www.members.tripod.com/jhills/

Another site fromt the US who has redesigned the camera, scroll down to the ATM section then the Audine Plus link

http://www.siowl.com/

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

That should keep the cost down to own 'top shelf' chips and electronics!

Good find Darren

[davidpretorius]

nice bit of work from the boys.

thanks wombat

[Wombat_In_Space (Darren)]

I have found the data sheet for the current VVD chip that cam be use in this camera for those of the technical mind it will give you all the infor on the chip.

http://www.kodak.com/global/plugins/...MELongSpec.pdf

[Pierre]

Hi,

just a few words about this ccd camera as I use it on loan since 3 months.

It is heavy-duty designed. One of my friends told about a russian tank. The fitting phase is not complicated, the whole procedure is described on the website with all instructions.

The Peltier is thermo-regulated by "Alaudine", the specific power supply. Other accessories have been designes such as EthernAude (for ethernet use) and Quickaudine (usb transceiver).

Although the model i use is jurassic Kaf400-based with its 40% QE, it can reach 19 magnitude within 2 hours exposure.

The camera and the power supply cost 2500 aud.

Pierre.
Audine user .

[bojan]

Audine is a very good design, using standard components (the only component harder to obtain is CCD chip).
This gave me the "pinch" to try something similar...
So, couple of years ago I started my own version od CCD camera (with TC237 from Texas instruments, costs ~$25), and it is just about to be finished.
CCD is mounted on peltier cooled cold finger, temperature sensor is mounted close to the chip so the temperature can be monitored, and it uses Silicon Labs F330 microcontroller with 10-bit ADC.
The communication is via serial bus with the PC application (it needs to be finished, I started the work in delphi and it works somehow, just bare bones for a moment).
If anyone is interested, especially if anyone is interested in colaboration to finish this project (mainly the PC application for camera needs to be properly designed and finished, microcontroller software is more or less ready), I will post more (or all) documentation I have so far :-).
The cost for the whole camera is far below the cost of Audine version, I would say, maximum $800, including machining of metal parts and printed circuit boards, but for first prototype only. More participants should lower the cost for PCB (the price for panel is ~$400 and 5~6 sets of PCB can be placed on one panel