CCD Imaging Camera
CCD cameras are incredible instruments allowing us to gather images and
information of faint and bright objects in great detail. Our CCD imaging camera is
the primary instrument providing detailed images of objects that are not
visible with the
naked eye through our telescopes. Our color filter wheel allows for additional visual
detail and some scientific analysis of gas and temperature distribution in nebulas. The
imaging camera is an (SBIG) Santa Barbara Instrument Group ST-7 with attached CFW-8 color
filter wheel. The ST-7 camera contains two CCD arrays, one for guiding (Texas Instruments
TC-211), the other for imaging (Kodak KAF-400). The self-guiding feature of this camera
can guide on a faint star using the guiding array independently of the larger imaging
array making corrections to your telescope in RA and DEC keeping the imaging array
aligned on the object for arc second accuracy in frequency of less than 1 second. for
up to one hour period. This wonderful technology replaces the old days of guiding your
telescope during an exposure by making small corrections in RA and DEC while keeping you
eyes glued to guide scope.
An attached CFW-8 color filter wheel utilizes red, green, blue
interference filters. The ST-7 camera's large CCD is an array of 765 x 510 of 9 micron
square pixels. Telescope focal length of F/6.3 (with focal reducer) provides the ST-7 a 18
x 12 arc-minutes field of view with 1.45 arc-seconds per pixel resolution. Focal length of
F/10 provides field of view of 12 x 8 arc-minutes with .9 arc-second per pixel resolution.
Additional features of ST-7 include electro-mechanical shutter, 16 bit analog to digital
(A/D) converter and regulated temperature control. The ST-7 camera is attached to the
telescope control computer (TCC) through parallel cable. The (TCC) is an Intel Pentium 100
MHZ running Windows NT 4.0 and CCDOPS for image acquisition.
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