The coolest Camera..................

[Harb]

Well I recieved my outback cooler today, with all the other adaptors I ordered as well,
Will be keen to see how it goes

Seen here with my Nikon 300/2.8

Just have to mod my little 12V fridge for the coolant and away I go....

[Harb]

By the way,
The Nikon Lens is attached via a Steve Mogg Adaptor as well.
Also got the "C" to Nikon lens, the M42 to "C" and the "C" to 1.25 eyepiece to a couple of others...

cheers

[Dennis]

Looks like a very nice set up - look forward to seeing some photos when you get the chance to use the system.

Cheers

Dennis

[Harb]

I can hardly wait Dennis

Gee that flash sure brought out the dust

now where did that brush go........................

Cheers

[jase (Jason)]

Looks impressive. Is the Outback cooler actually regulated and is the temp measurable at all?

The only concern I'd have with such a setup is thermal runaway. When you boost the initial cooling so high, the fan works over time and never actually reduces the temp.

Even with cooled astro CCD cameras this can occur. Many manuals recommending setting the temp to a mid point i.e. -20 degrees, then move on to -35 degrees or what you desire once the camera has reached the mid point. Setting the camera to -35 degrees immediately can cause the issue.
Slightly off topic, but I've read on numerous forums that actually cooling a chip beyond a threshold actually delivers no further reduction in noise. Interestingly, many people believe the cooler you go, it will yield better results. The threshold is based on camera/chip combinations. Most manufactures have this information on hand.

[Lee]

Nice!
Might have to look at one of those....

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

You will find them here. I thought about getting one myself but I hardly use the DSI

[Harb]

Some info from the site.....

Cooling a typical CCD by around 5 degree’s Celsius can halve the dark current noise generated by the CCD. This is particularly useful for Deep Sky imaging where light levels are very low and exposure times necessarily higher. Imaging with narrow band filters can also benefit from CCD cooling.
The ability of the Outback Cooler to regulate the temperature of the DSI CCD to the same temperature throughout a nights observing eliminated the need to take multiply dark frame sets as the night temperature changes. The Outback Cooler will return the CCD to the same temperature the next time you go out imaging which further reduces the need to take dark frames every session. Dark frames are valid for a given CCD at the same temperature over the same exposure time. So you can reuse your dark frames


First Problem............
Can't quite reach focus with the Nikon...........misses by about 1/4" or less distance from the CCD Chip.
Would be OK with the DSI (Mine is the pro version with the filter slide which adds about 1/2".........
I will make an adaptor so I can remove the filter slide and do mono work with this setup, or add color filters to the lenses internal filter tray for color stuff.....keep you posted.
Did look nice indoors when it did get focus on my test card about 10m away....very sharp and great contrast and using only the very centre portion of the image projected by the lens, it was tack sharp from edge to edge at even the highest res chart...........very promissing

[Harb]

Originally Posted by jase

Looks impressive. Is the Outback cooler actually regulated and is the temp measurable at all?

Bit of info:

The outback cooler uses a controller circuit to set and regulate the temperature of the DSI CCD image sensor. The CCD temperature is set and indicated on the control panel on the rear of the Outback Cooler (Error! Reference source not found.). The heat sink occupies about 2/3 of the back and the control panel takes up the rest of the space. There is one red button in the middle of the control panel that allows you to change the temperature setting. Each time you press the button, the target temperature moves to the next colder temperature. When you reach the coldest setting it switches back to the warmest.
Seven LED’s that indicate the temperature you have set (the target) and the current temperature of the cold finger. The LED's correspond to temperatures ranging from +20 °C to -10 °C (68 °F to 14 °F) in steps of 5 °C (9 °F), arranged with the warmest temperature at the left, near the button.



Not really tring to freeze it completely, but just get the first bit of temp reduction which gives the highest returns...........
After that, the law of deminishing returns kicks in.....

cheers
John

[jase (Jason)]

Thanks for the info John. Certainly your initial tests do sound promising. Shame you can't reach focus with the filter set. Insufficient backfocus did come to mind, but would have thought you'd be ok. Tri-color wide field images are very appealing. Looking forward to seeing some results when you get everything sorted.

[Harb]

Oh well, it did seem a bit to easy

Lucky for me the lens has a 2" filter draw, so I can afford to loose the slide for the purpose of this experiment, and use a set of 2" filters I have.

Cheers