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Starlight Xpress Trius PRO-36 User Manual
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Starlight Xpress Trius PRO-36 User Manual

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Handbook for the Trius PRO-36
Issue 1 April 2019
Trius PRO-36
CCD camera user manual
Thank you for purchasing a Starlight Xpress CCD PRO-36 camera. We hope that you
will be very satisfied with its performance. The PRO-36 is a very large format, high-
resolution cooled CCD camera, especially designed for astronomical imaging. The SX-
36 uses a Kodak KAI 16070 Interline CCD, with 4872(H) X 3248(V) pixels in a 36.1mm x
24.05mm active area. The use of high performance microlenses on the CCD surface
gives the greatest possible throughput of light to the pixels and the resulting QE is
very good over the entire visible spectrum. It is an upgrade on the SX-36 camera and
incorporates the same features, such as an internal USB hub with 3 external ports
and a dry argon CCD chamber fill. The USB hub permits several other devices to
share the single USB connection and greatly reduces the number of cables required
in a typical set-up. For example, a Lodestar X2 guide camera and an SX filter wheel
could use two of the USB ports and the third might connect to an electric focuser, or
similar peripheral. The argon fill, along with other improvements to the cooler stack,
has improved the delta T to about -42 degrees C.
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  • Page 1 Trius PRO-36 CCD camera user manual Thank you for purchasing a Starlight Xpress CCD PRO-36 camera. We hope that you will be very satisfied with its performance. The PRO-36 is a very large format, high- resolution cooled CCD camera, especially designed for astronomical imaging. The SX- 36 uses a Kodak KAI 16070 Interline CCD, with 4872(H) X 3248(V) pixels in a 36.1mm x...
  • Page 2 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 As per the SX range, this camera also includes a CCD temperature monitoring circuit that provides regulated set-point cooling of the chip, adjustable chip alignment and a very compact overall size.
  • Page 3 Issue 1 April 2019 Windows will report ‘Found new hardware’ and will search for the drivers. They should be found automatically and installed after a few seconds. A ‘Starlight Xpress CCD’ device will appear under the ‘USB Serial Bus Devices’.
  • Page 4 (see above). If the installation is successful, there will be a ‘Starlight Xpress camera’, but if this device shows as faulty, try clicking on it and selecting ‘properties’ and then ‘update driver’. Following the on screen instructions will allow you to re-select the correct inf file in Windows\Inf which should fix the problem.
  • Page 5 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 The other default settings are not important for current purposes and may be left as the software start-up values for now. Now click on ‘Save’ and the ini file will be created and the software set for your camera.
  • Page 6 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 As can be seen above, there is a CCD temperature monitoring window at the right hand side of the panel. At switch-on, this will default to full power cooling with an end point of -40C and, needless to say, this is rather extreme.
  • Page 7 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 If you use a normal lens, then stop it down to the smallest aperture number possible (usually F22) as this will minimise focus problems and keep the light level reasonable for daytime testing. The pin hole needs no such adjustments and will work immediately, although somewhat fuzzily.
  • Page 8 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 2) Does the software indicate that the camera is successfully connected? An attempt to take a picture will fail with an error message if the USB is not properly installed. In this case, try unplugging the USB cable and then reconnecting it after about 5 seconds.
  • Page 9 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 At this point, you will have a working knowledge of how to take and process an PRO- 36 image. It is time to move on to astronomical imaging, which has its own, unique,...
  • Page 10 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 As a general guide, most CCD astronomers try to maintain an image scale of about 2 arc seconds per pixel for deep sky images. This matches the telescope resolution to the CCD resolution and avoids ‘undersampling’ the image, which can result in square stars and other unwanted effects.
  • Page 11 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 Because of the large CCD size used in the PRO-36, field vignetting and field curvature will be a problem with many general purpose telescopes. The larger SCTs and many of the new ‘APO’ refractors will not suffer so badly from this issue, but you may have to compromise on vignetting and usable field size when imaging with a less highly corrected instrument.
  • Page 12 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 I will assume that you are now set up with a focused camera attached to a telescope with an operating sidereal drive. If so, you are now in a position to take a moderately long exposure of some interesting deep-sky astronomical objects.
  • Page 13 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 A typical 5 minute dark frame exposure. Note the random scatter of ‘warm pixels’ A 5 minute exposure – many warm pixels are visible (see the magnified view below)
  • Page 14 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 Warm pixels in a small portion of the raw image The isolated nature of the warm pixels in an PRO-36 image permits you to use several different methods of removing them from your raw images. Subtracting a dark frame is the most commonly used means of removing the warm pixels, but is not necessarily the best or most effective method.
  • Page 15 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 Warm pixels removed by application of a 3x3 median filter A second option is to run a 3x3 ‘Median’ filter on the image. This simple method will remove isolated hot pixels and replace them with the median value of the pixels adjacent to it.
  • Page 16 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 pixels will not now be aligned and will average down to a lower level. If the summing is done by using a ‘statistical’ summing technique, such as median or sigma combining, then the warm pixels will be removed altogether. This method needs more powerful image processing than is available in SXV_Hmf, but both AstroArt and Maxim DL can do it.
  • Page 17 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 A deep image of the Deer-Lick galaxy group by Rick Krejci Although I have concentrated on the use of a telescope for deep-sky imaging, do not forget that you have the option of using an ordinary camera lens for impressive wide-field shots! A good quality 200mm F3.5 lens with an infrared blocking filter will...
  • Page 18 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 ‘smear’ below the image from light leakage in the CCD structure. To minimise this, keep the image brightness down with an ND filter or aperture stop, so that the exposure time is not less than about 0.5 seconds. A H-alpha nebula filter often gives excellent results.
  • Page 19 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 ‘slewed’ into alignment and then summed together by the software. This mode can help to overcome a poor RA drive by summing images that have exposure times shorter than the drive error period. The resulting image has more noise than a single exposure of the same total length, but this method of imaging is still an effective way of making long exposures.
  • Page 20 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 surprisingly difficult to achieve and many designs of light source have appeared in the literature and on the Web. These usually consist of a large lightweight box, containing several lamps and an internal coating of matt white paint, which is placed over the objective of the telescope to provide an evenly illuminated surface.
  • Page 21 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 Using the built-in USB hub ports The SX-36 incorporates a three port USB hub for use with external accessories. The ports are available on the rear of the camera, via ‘mini-B’ style sockets and can supply approximately 200 mA each to power a guide camera or USB filter wheel etc.
  • Page 22 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 Procedure: 1) Disconnect the lead from the camera head and remove it from the telescope. Place it on a table with the optical window facing downward. 2) Remove the two M3 screws and the M8 nut from the camera back plate and ease the plate out of the camera body.
  • Page 23 Handbook for the Trius PRO-36 Issue 1 April 2019 ‘AstroArt’ by MSB software. You can purchase AstroArt from many dealers Worldwide and more information may be obtained from their web site at http://www.msb-astroart.com Maxim DL is also a very popular option and may be purchased from many astronomical equipment dealers.

  • Page 24: Conditions Of Guarantee

    220v / 110v AC @ 12 watts max., 12v DC @ 900mA Dear User, Thank you for purchasing a Starlight Xpress CCD Imaging System. We are confident that you will gain much satisfaction from this equipment, but please read carefully the accompanying instruction manual to ensure that you achieve the best performance that is capable of providing.
  • Page 25 5) This guarantee shall not apply to components that have a naturally limited life. 6) Starlight Xpress’s decision in all matters is final, and any faulty component which has been replaced will become the property of Starlight Xpress Ltd.