I have been using a high frame rate 1” format CCD camera for solar h-alpha imaging for many years now. It as consistently delivered very high quality (indeed, award-winning) images. I had also tried various CMOS sensors over the same period, but their noise in one form or another or lack of dynamic range had me returning to my proven solution based on a Sony ICX814 CCD ( 3.69 micron , 3376 x2704 pixel array). While this sensor is excellent, it is not perfect. Full-frame rate is around 9 frames per second, faint vertical bleed could be seen in extremely stretched data, plus thermal noise could have been much better had the camera body been actively cooled.
QHY have recently introduced a cooled 1” square format CMOS camera based on the back-illuminated SONY IMX 533M sensor (3.76 micron 3003 x 3003 pixel array). Unsurprisingly it is called the QHY533m. While the quoted full-frame rate is around 20 frames per second, in practice my observatory PC via its USB 3.0 port peaks out at some 17 frames per second.
This camera is very impressive. It has an excellent dynamic range, extremely low noise and with its square format allows for efficient framing of the solar disk. The high frame rate allows more frames to be captured in those fleeting moments of good daytime seeing. Images with beautifully resolved spickules along the solar rim are testimony to this ramp-up in performance. The sensor has excellent QE and picks up faint prominence details without having to resort to longer exposure times.
Anyway enough banter from me.
Here is a link to today’s imaging run.
