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Cameras, Jerry Macon

Cameras

Cameras, Jerry Macon

Cameras

Description

The 3 cameras on the three telescopes are:

Left: SBIG 8300M a monochrome CCD custom camera for astrophotography. It has 7 filters in a rotating filter wheel, Luminance, Red, Green, Blue, Ha (hydrogen alpha), Oii (oxygen 2), and Siii (sulfur 3). Here it is shown on the Williams Optics 71mm (350mm focal length) refractor. Usually it is on the RC12 in the center.

Middle: Canon 6D full frame DSLR (in cooler box) on the Ritchey Chreiten 12" reflector, focal length 1960mm with a reducer that reduces it from the native 2440mm.

Right: Canon 6D full frame DSLR (in cooler box) on a Stellarvue SVR102 mm refractor.

Both Canon's are in cooler boxes I made that lower their operating temperature 46 degrees F below the ambient temperature. This reduces the noise they produce on an image dramatically which gives a corresponding major improvement in image quality. The styrofoam insulation is 2" thick and the cooler units come from a Coleman 12 volt DC pop cooler. They work amazingly well.

I can take images simultaneously on all three cameras, controlled by SGP (Sequence Generator Pro). I run a copy of SGP for each camera and since I don't dither, they don't fight with each other. I have no need to dither since I use the Cosmetic Correction routine in the Batch PreProcessing process of PixInsight for processing my images. The Cosmetic Correction routine does a wonderful job of eliminating all the hot and cold pixels, which is the primary reason (if not only reason) for dithering. You provide it a master dark to use in the registration/integration process of BPP which gives it the locations of all the hot and cold pixels.

At top center just the edge of a UV video camera shows. It aims directly down the main RC12 scope so I can see exactly where the mount is pointed when I am imaging remotely over the internet. This lets me confirm that the telescopes are actually pointing through the center of the dome shutter (opening) and can see stars and not the inside of the dome (a bad deal). Another camera not shown is on the side of the dome and shows me the entire mount and telescopes.

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Cameras, Jerry Macon