Important ParametersSome Companies Providing Quality Cameras for Astronomy
Camera Comparison Table
Some important parameters that should be considered when evaluating astronomical CCD cameras:
- pixel size in microns
- number of pixels in detector array (width x height)
- quantum efficiency
- blue sensitivity
- read noise (electrons/pixel)
- cooling (degrees C below ambient)
- dark noise at -20o C (electrons/pixel)
- control software availability
- filter wheel availability
- focuser availability
- download speed
- cost
[ top of page ]
Santa Barbara Instruments Group (SBIG)
http://www.sbig.com
Apogee Instruments, Inc.
http://apogee-ccd.comSpecifications for AP series cameras
Finger Lakes Instruments
http://www.fli-cam.com/Cameras and related products page
Here is a table which compares some CCD camera systems.
CCD Camera Comparison Table
[ top of page ]
Here is a comparison of relative sizes of various detectors. The comparison also includes pixel sizes and number of pixels.
SBIG tends to use Kodak chips, while the newqest cameras from Apogee and Finger Lakes use SITe chips. The SITe chips are thined and rear illuminated and thus have significantly higher quantum efficiencies than the Kodak chips.
Here is a comparison of quantum efficiencies for several types of CCD chips.
In this illustration the red curve which peaks at about 750 nm is typical for an ST7 camera (SBIG), the green curve which peaks near 640 nm is typical for an ST8 camera (SBIG), and the black curve which peaks near 680 nm is typical for the AP7 camera (Apogee).
[ top of page ]