Related Manuals for Moravian Instruments G3-6300
Summary of Contents for Moravian Instruments G3-6300
- Page 1 G3 and G4 CCD Operating Manual...
- Page 2 Version 2.3 Modified on December 4 , 2012 All information furnished by Moravian Instruments is believed to be accurate. Moravian Instruments reserves the right to change any information contained herein without notice. G3 and G4 CCD cameras are not authorized for and should not be used within Life Support Systems without the specific written consent of the Moravian Instruments.
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Page 3: Table Of Contents
Table of Contents Introduction....................5 Camera Technical Specifications..............7 CCD Chip....................10 Model G3-6300.................10 Model G3-1000.................11 Model G3-11000................11 Model G3-11000C................11 Model G4-9000.................12 Model G4-16000................12 Camera Electronics.................12 Model G3-6300.................13 Model G3-1000.................13 Model G3-11000................13 Model G4-9000.................14 Model G4-16000................14 CCD Chip Cooling.................15 Power Supply..................15 Mechanical Specifications..............16 Package Contents..................17... - Page 4 Working with Multiple Cameras............32 Camera Operation..................34 Camera and the Telescope..............34 Temperature Control................36 First Images....................38 Brightness and Contrast – Image Stretching..........40 Calibration....................41 Color Images with monochrome camera and filters.......43 Color images with color camera.............46 Balancing colors..................48 Some General Rules for Successful Imaging..........50 Camera Maintenance..................53 Desiccant exchange................53 Changing Filters..................54...
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Page 5: Introduction
Introduction Thank you for choosing the large-format CCD camera. G3 and G4 series of CCD cameras were developed for imaging under extremely low-light conditions in astronomy, microscopy and similar areas. Design of this series inherits from G2 cameras, with which they share precise electronics providing uniform frames without artifacts and extremely low read noise limited only by CCD detector itself. - Page 6 (480 Mbps) hosts. Although they are fully backward compatible with USB 1.1 full-speed (12 Mbps) hosts, image download time can be somewhat longer if USB 1.1 connection is used. A simple and cheap device called USB hub can expand number of available USB port.
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Page 7: Camera Technical Specifications
Camera Technical Specifications G3 and G4 series of CCD cameras are manufactured with two kinds of CCD detectors: G3 and G4 cameras with Kodak KAF Full Frame (FF) CCD ● architecture. Almost all Full Frame CCD detector area is exposed to light. - Page 8 G3 cameras with Kodak KAI Interline Transfer (IT) architecture ● (G4 cameras are not produced with IT detectors). There is a shielded column of pixels just beside each column of active pixels on these detectors. The shielded columns are called Vertical registers. One pulse moves charge from exposed pixels to shielded pixels on the end of each exposure.
- Page 9 G3 camera models: Model G3-6300 G3-1000 G3-11000 G3-11000C CCD chip KAF-6303E KAF-1001E KAI-11002 KAI-11002 Resolution 3072×2048 1024×1024 4032×2688 4032×2688 9×9 µm 24×24 µm 9×9 µm 9×9 µm Pixel size CCD area 27.7×18.4 mm 24.6×24.6 mm 36.3×24.2 mm 36.3×24.2 mm Color mask...
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Page 10: Ccd Chip
Illustration 3: Quantum efficiency of Kodak CCD detectors used in G3 and G4 cameras Inherent dark current of these detectors is quite low compared to other CCD detectors, suitable for scientific applications, which results into very good signal/noise ratio. Model G3-6300 G3-06300 uses 6 MPx Kodak KAF-6303E Class 1 or 2 CCD chip. -
Page 11: Model G3-1000
Resolution 3072×2048 pixels 9×9 µm Pixel size Imaging area 27,7×18,4 mm Full well capacity Approx. 100 000 e- Output node capacity Approx. 220 000 e- Dark current 1 e-/s/pixel at 0°C Dark signal doubling 6.3 °C Model G3-1000 G3-01000 model uses 1 MPx Kodak KAF-1001E Class 1 or 2 CCD chip. Resolution 1024×1024 pixels 24×24 µm... -
Page 12: Model G4-9000
Model G4-9000 G4-9000 uses 9 MPx CCD Kodak KAF-09000. Resolution 3056×3056 pixels 12×12 µm Pixel size Imaging area 36,8×36,8 mm Full well capacity Approx. 110 000 e- Dark current 0,5 e-/s/pixel at 0°C Dark signal doubling 7 °C Model G4-16000 G4-16000 uses 16 MPx CCD Kodak KAF-16803. -
Page 13: Model G3-6300
USB 1.1 full-speed compatible Binning can be combined independently on both axes. Image download time and system read noise depends on the CCD chip used in particular camera model. Model G3-6300 Gain 1.5 e-/ADU (1×l binning) 2.3 e-/ADU (other binnings) -
Page 14: Model G4-9000
13 e- (Standard read) Full frame download 16.9 s (LN read) 14.1 s (Standard read) Model G4-9000 Gain 1.5 e-/ADU (1×l binning) 1.7 e-/ADU (other binnings) System read noise 10 e- (LN read) 12 e- (Standard read) Full frame download 16.3 s (LN read) 13.1 s (Standard read) Model G4-16000... -
Page 15: Ccd Chip Cooling
CCD Chip Cooling Regulated two-stage thermo-electric cooling is capable to cool the CCD chip up to 45 °C below ambient temperature. The Peltier hot side is cooled by a fans. The CCD chip temperature is regulated with ±0.1 °C precision. High temperature drop and precision regulation ensure very low dark current for long exposures and allow image proper calibration. -
Page 16: Mechanical Specifications
Camera head supply 12 V DC Camera head power consumption 14 W without cooling 52 W maximum cooling Adapter input voltage 100-240 V AC/50-60 Hz Adapter output voltage 12 V DC/5 A Adapter maximum power 60 W 1. Power consumption is measured on the AC side of the supplied 12 V AC/DC power supply. -
Page 17: Package Contents
filters without cells (only a glass) up to 51 mm diameter. Internal mechanical shutter Yes, blade shutter Shortest exposure time 0.25 s Longest exposure time Limited by chip saturation only Internal filter wheel 5 positions 2" threaded filter cells or glass (G3 cameras only) filters up to 51 mm diameter Head dimensions... -
Page 18: Optional Components
Illustration 4: 12 V DC/5 A power supply adapter for G3 and G4 CCD Camera 5 m long USB A-B cable for connecting camera to host PC. ● Warning: 5 m (approx. 15 feet) is the maximum allowed length of USB cable. Do not try to connect 5 m USB A-B cable with USB A-A extension cable to get a longer connection. -
Page 19: Filter Wheel For Five 2 Inch Threaded Filter Cells
Filter wheel for five 2 inch threaded filter cells Because the filter wheel is not necessary for some applications (e.g. in microscopy), a version of G3 camera without filter wheel is also offered. Make sure you choose the variant with filter wheel included, even if you plan to use own filters and you order camera without LRGB filters. -
Page 20: Ubvri Filter Set
UBVRI filter set Scientific-grade UBVRI filter set with AR coatings in 2" cells. This set contains scientific Blue, Visual, Red and Infra-red filters for photometric applications. Separate filters Number of 2" filters for narrow-band imaging and other special applications (UHC, Hα, Hβ, OIII, SII, etc.) are available. Visit our web site for current filter offering. - Page 21 Pentax (Praktica) M42×1 mm inner thread, lens adapter preserves 46.5 mm back focal distance. Adapter with inner thread M48×0.75 thread M48×0.75 adapter Zeiss adapter M44×1 mm outer thread, includes fixing nut. PSB-1100 adapter Threaded adapter for TeleVue PSB-1100 coma corrector Canon EOS lens Standard Canon EOS bayonet adapter...
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Page 22: Telescope Adapters For G4 Cameras
distance (for instance T-thread defines back focal distance to 55 mm, but certain distance is defined also for Pentax (Praktica) thread, for Canon EOS and Nikon bayonets etc.). Adapters are attached to the camera body using four M3 (3 mm metric) screws. These threaded holes are placed on the corners of 44 mm square. - Page 23 Canon EOS lens Standard Canon EOS bayonet adapter adapter Adapters are attached to the camera body using four M3 (3 mm metric) screws. Threaded holes on the camera body are placed on the corners of 52 mm square. Custom adapters can be made upon request. G2 and G3 cameras use smaller 44 mm threaded hole square on the camera head for mounting adapters, so adapters for G2/G3 series and G4 series are not compatible.
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Page 24: Getting Started
Getting Started Although the G3 and G4 cameras are intended for operation at night (or for very low-light conditions at day), it is always better (and highly recommended) to install software and to make sure everything is working OK during day, before the first night under the stars. -
Page 25: Windows 7 System Driver Installation
Let us note that 64 bit versions of Windows 7 and Windows Vista require digitally signed drivers. Drivers without digital signature cannot be installed on these systems. All G3 camera drivers supplied by Moravian Instruments are digitally signed from the beginning of the year 2010. Windows XP and Windows Vista System Driver Installation The operating system notifies the new USB device was plugged in the “Found... -
Page 26: Windows 2000 System Driver Installation
next step. It is not necessary to install files from CD-ROM. It is possible to copy the folder containing driver files e.g. to shared network volume, USB Flash Disk etc. Then it is necessary to choose the “Install from a list or specific location”... -
Page 27: Sips Software Installation
SIPS Software Installation The Scientific Image Processing System (SIPS) software package is designed to operate without the necessity to be installed in any particular folder. The package can be even run directly from USB Flash Drive or CD-ROM. SIPS package is distributed in the two forms: 1. -
Page 28: G3 And G4 Ccd Camera Driver For Sips
[Telescope] NexStar = nexstar.dll LX200 = lx200.dll Individual sections define which driver would be loaded and asked to enumerate all connected devices of particular type (CCD cameras, GPS receivers, telescope mounts). SIPS package already contains this file containing all included drivers. This file is not modified programmatically, it is necessary to edit it manually if new device driver, not included into basic package, is installed. -
Page 29: Using Of Multiple Configuration Files For Different Cameras
Red, LRed Green, LGreen Blue, LBlue Clear, 0 The file should contain just one section “[filters]” (other sections, if present, are ignored). Every line in this section defines one filter position. The first string defines the filter name, which will be displayed in various parts of the SIPS GUI or will be part of file name of acquired images (if the user chooses including of filter name to file name). -
Page 30: Cropping Of The Ccd Area
camera. If there are multiple cameras connected at once, adopting of configuration file is not possible. This is why SIPS camera drivers (and also camera drivers for other programs) introduced enhanced naming convention of driver configuration file. Every Gx series camera has unique identification number, stated on the camera shell (this number is also displayed in the list of all connected cameras in the SIPS “CCD Camera”... -
Page 31: Camera Connection
Camera Connection Camera connection is pretty easy. Plug the power supply into the camera and connect the camera to the computer USB port using the supplied USB cable. Note the computer recognizes the camera only if it is also powered. Camera without power act the same way as the unplugged one from the computer point of view. -
Page 32: Camera Led State Indicator
cable power lines. This means it does not draw laptop batteries and long USB cables with thin power lines (which can cause voltage drops and power-related problems for USB-powered devices) does not affect the G3 camera operation. Camera LED state indicator There is a two-color LED on the camera body, close to the USB connector. - Page 33 Illustration 8: Camera Id number is displayed in brackets after camera name in SIPS But the user always needs to distinguish individual cameras – for instance one camera should be used for pointing, another for imaging. This is why every camera has assigned unique identifier (ID number).
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Page 34: Camera Operation
Camera Operation Camera operation depends on the software used. Scientific cameras usually cannot be operated independently on the host computer and G3 and G4 CCD also needs a host PC (with properly installed software) to work. Camera itself has no displays, buttons or other controls. On the other side, every function can be controlled programmatically, so the camera is suitable for unattended operation in robotic setups. - Page 35 Standard 2" barrel adapter allows camera connection to vast majority of astronomical telescopes. 2" barrel adapter can cause vignetting (partial shielding of detector corners), especially if a fast optical systems is used with the G3-11000 camera with ×36 mm CCD detector. Also T-thread (M42 ×0.75) or Praktica (M42 ×...
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Page 36: Temperature Control
camera at daylight. The shortest exposure of G3 or G4 cameras is around 0.25 s, which can be too long at daylight conditions. The following chapters provide only a brief description of camera operation under SIPS (Scientific Image Processing System) program, supplied with the camera. - Page 37 Illustration 10: “Cooling” tab of the CCD Camera Control tool Also notice the yellow line in the graph – it displays camera internal temperature. This temperature also somewhat grows as the cooling utilization grows. The hot air from the Peltier hot side warms up the camera interior slightly.
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Page 38: First Images
settles. What is the best temperature for the CCD chip? The answer is simple – the lower the better. But the minimum temperature is limited by the camera construction. The G3 and G4 cameras are equipped with two-stage cooler, which can cool the chip more than 45 °C below ambient temperature with air cooling. - Page 39 Illustration 11: Exposure tab of the CCD Camera Control tool It is necessary to define few parameters before the first shot. First, it is necessary to define the image type – choose “Light” from “Exposure” combo box. Then choose the exposure time. If you experiment with exposures in the dark room with a camera connected to some small refractor, start with 1 second.
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Page 40: Brightness And Contrast - Image Stretching
before you start any exposure. If you choose “Dark” from “Exposure” combo box (remember the image handling options on the right side changes – make sure they are properly defined), image will be captured without opening the shutter. The captured image will represent the thermal noise, generated by the CCD chip itself, combined with the CCD chip and camera electronics read noise. -
Page 41: Calibration
should be on the count value representing black on the image. Any pixel with value lower than this count will be displayed black. The High count should be on the count value representing white on the image. Any pixel with value higher than this count will be displayed white. - Page 42 Illustration 13: The raw image downloaded from the camera The Dark frame is taken with the same exposition time at the same CCD chip temperature. Because hot pixels are less stable than normal pixels, it is always better to take more dark frames (at last 5) and to create resulting dark frame as their average or better median.
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Page 43: Color Images With Monochrome Camera And Filters
Illustration 16: Flat field represents the Illustration 17: Fully calibrated image telescope/camera response to uniformly with dark frame subtracted and applied illuminated field flat field CCD image calibration is described in detail in the SIPS User's Guide. Refer to the “Introduction to CCD Imaging” and “Calibrate Tool” chapters for calibration description in theory and in practice. - Page 44 Color CCD chips have one fixed set of filters without the possibility to ● exchange them or to completely remove them. Monochrome chip is capable to take images with narrow-band filters like Hα, OIII, etc. Color chips have less Quantum Efficiency (QE) then monochrome ●...
- Page 45 Illustration 18: “(L)RGB Image Add“ tool in SIPS... Illustration 19: ...and a resulting image...
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Page 46: Color Images With Color Camera
If we take images for individual colors and also luminance image, possibly with different binning and exposure times, the calibration starts to be relatively complex. We need dark frame for every exposure time and binning. We need flat field for every filter and binning. We need dark frames for every flat field. This is the price for beautiful images of deep-sky wonders. - Page 47 There are several algorithms for calculating missing color components of individual pixels – from simply using of color from neighboring pixels (this method provides quite coarse images) to more accurate methods like bilinear or bicubic interpolation. There are even more sophisticated algorithms like pixel grouping etc.
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Page 48: Balancing Colors
the original raw image. Also please note the settings of the “Bayer X odd” and “Bayer Y odd” check boxes must be altered when any geometric transformations are applied to the raw image (e.g. mirroring, rotation, etc.). Some transformations (e.g. soft binning or resampling) cannot be performed on raw image at all. - Page 49 Illustration 21: Histogram and Stretch tool shows histograms of individual colors...
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Page 50: Some General Rules For Successful Imaging
Some General Rules for Successful Imaging Advanced CCD cameras caused a revolution in amateur astronomy. Amateurs started to capture images of deep-sky objects similar or surpassing the ones captured on film by multi-meter telescopes on professional observatories. While the CCD technology allows capturing of beautiful images, doing so is definitely not easy and straightforward as it may seems. - Page 51 diameter. Focusing, especially on fast telescopes, is critical for sharp images. Electrical focuser is a huge advantage, because it allows focusing without shaking the telescope by hand and with precision surpassing the manual focusing. Keep on mind that the star images are affected not only by focusing, but also by seeing.
- Page 52 Moon can shine too much, the seeing can be extremely bad… Number of things can come bad, but the bad luck never lasts forever. Start with bright objects (globular clusters, planetary nebulae) and learn the technique. Then proceed to more difficult dimmer objects. If you are new to CCD imaging and terms like “dark frame”, “read noise”...
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Page 53: Camera Maintenance
Camera Maintenance The G3 CCD camera is a precision optical and mechanical instrument, so it should be handled with care. Camera should be protected from moisture and dust. Always cover the telescope adapter when the camera is removed from the telescope or put the whole camera into protective plastic bag. -
Page 54: Changing Filters
The silica-gel container is accessible from the back side of the camera head. Illustration 22: Silica-gel container is under the screwed cap with slot, left from the cooling fans The slotted desiccant chamber cap can be unscrewed e.g. by a coin. Pour out wet silica-gel and fill the chamber with a dry one. - Page 55 wheel of the G3 camera. Opening the head is quite simple – it is just necessary to unscrew she eight bolts, which holds the camera head together. Warning: The blade shutter rotates 180° between individual snapshots. Camera cover could be opened only when the shutter is closed. If for instance the camera is unplugged from power adapter while exposing and the shutter remains open, it can be damaged while removing the camera cover.
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Page 56: Changing The Whole Filter Wheel
defining the first position is preceded by another hole. Filter numbering is illustrated by the following picture: Illustration 24: Filter positions in the G3 filter wheel Changing the Whole Filter Wheel The whole filter wheel can be changed at once. It is necessary to remove the front part of the camera case the same way as in the case of changing filters. -
Page 57: Power Supply Fuse
the adapter with the new one. Power Supply Fuse The power supply inside the camera is protected against connecting of inverted- polarity power plug or against connecting of too-high DC voltage (above 15 V) by a fuse. If such event happens and the cooling fans on the back side of the camera do not work when the camera is connected to proper power supply, return the camera to the service center for repair.