Specifications

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. It is necessary to gain experience, to learn imaging and image
processing techniques, to spend many nights mastering the technology.
Although CCD camera can convert majority of incoming light into
information, it is not a miracle device. Keep on mind that laws of physics
are sill valid.
● CCD camera does nothing more than converting image created on
the chip by telescope (or objective lens) into information. A quality
telescope and quality “photographic-class” mount is absolute must
for successful imaging. If the mount cannot keep the telescope on
track or the telescope cannot create perfectly focused image, result
is always distorted and blurred.
● Ideally the exposures should be automatically guided using guiding
CCD camera or at last webcam or similar device. Tracking errors
caused by drive periodic error, mount polar misalignment or other
mechanical issues (often unnoticeable by eyes) cause streaking of
star images. Note the exposure time for each color often reaches
tens of minutes or even hours if the really high quality images are
taken.
The G1 series of CCD cameras are especially designed with
guiding on mind. G1 CCD cameras are equipped with “autoguider”
connector, which allows direct connection between the G1 camera
head and telescope mount. 16-bit digitization and using of sensitive
Sony ICX CCD detectors provide higher sensitivity and dynamic
range compared to typical video or web cameras. The SIPS
software package supports both imaging and guiding cameras and
implements sophisticated guiding algorithms.
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