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Handbook for the SXVR-H16

Issue 1 June 2009

1

SXVR-H16

CCD camera user manual

Thank you

for purchasing a Starlight Xpress CCD camera. We hope that you will be

very satisfied with its performance. The SXVR-H16 is a large format, high-resolution
cooled CCD camera, especially designed for astronomical imaging. The SXVR-H16
uses a Kodak KAI4022 Interline CCD, with

2048(H) X 2048(V)

pixels in a 15mm x

15mm 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. Our new ‘R’ type USB2 interface
hardware gives an exceptionally fast download speed of about 2 megapixels per
second, and so the SXVR-H16 can download a full resolution 16 bit image in only 2.5
seconds.

Please take a few minutes to study the contents of this manual, which will help you to
get the camera into operation quickly and without problems. I am sure that you want

Summary of Contents for SXVR-H16

Page 1: ...a 15mm x 15mm 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 vi...

Page 2: ...ics card capable of displaying an image in a minimum of 1600 x 1200 pixels and 32 bit colour A medium specification Pentium with between 1GHz and 3GHz processor speed is ideal Please note that the SXV...

Page 3: ...ll be able to access it You can confirm that the installation is complete by checking the status of the USB devices in the Windows Device Manager see above Start up the Windows Control Panel and selec...

Page 4: ...nu and image panel appear If this is the first time that it has been run you will receive a warning about the lack of an ini file just click on OK and then open Set program defaults from the File menu...

Page 5: ...click on the camera icon at the top of the screen If the USB connection is OK a message box will inform you of the Handle number for the SXVIO interface and various other version details etc Click OK...

Page 6: ...your camera and ambient conditions when you have some experience of using the system but do not try to operate at extreme cooling when the air temperature is high Recording your first image We now ha...

Page 7: ...or pinhole towards a well lit and clearly defined object some distance away Now click on the camera icon in the toolbar of the SXV H16 software and the camera control panel will appear see above Sele...

Page 8: ...eb site to see if there are any updates or information about your camera software that might help The message board might prove useful to ask for help with getting your camera operating properly Our g...

Page 9: ...opes 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...

Page 10: ...an indicator Once you are happy with the focus quality achieved you might like to trim the settings of your par focal or flip mirror eyepiece to match the current camera position Although you can rea...

Page 11: ...ime used during an imaging session As variations in ambient temperature can affect the dark signal it is best to take the dark frames within a few minutes of capturing your images For the same reason...

Page 12: ...Handbook for the SXVR H16 Issue 1 June 2009 12 A 5 minute exposure many warm pixels are visible see the magnified view below...

Page 13: ...he readout noise will be much reduced by the square root of the number of averaged darks and so this is one way to improve the situation but it needs a lot of imaging time to be devoted to gathering t...

Page 14: ...rm pixels are modified the rest of the pixels are unaffected Yet another option is to sum several images that have a small degree of dither in their star alignment If the images are realigned on the s...

Page 15: ...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 blo...

Page 16: ...ill not stop until you press a computer key The images will be saved in FITs format with sequential names such as Img23 Img24 and will be found in the Autosave directory or a sub directory of Autosave...

Page 17: ...otes on the camera window and vignetting effects in the optical system of the telescope Dust motes act as inverse pinholes and cast out of focus images of the telescope aperture onto the CCD chip wher...

Page 18: ...y must first have a dark frame subtracted Although this may appear to be unimportant with such brightly lit and short exposures there is the bias offset of the camera in each image and this can produc...

Page 19: ...mbly mounted in front of the SXV camera or with a separate guide telescope rigidly mounted alongside your imaging telescope I personally use it with an 80mm aperture F5 inexpensive refractor as a guid...

Page 20: ...n a 80mm refractor guide scope in the author s garden To use the autoguider please proceed as follows 1 Having started the SXVR H16 software open the autoguider control panel by clicking on the autogu...

Page 21: ...cope and mount You have the option of manually selecting values or asking the software to attempt to determine what they should be This is done by pressing the Train button and waiting for the softwar...

Page 22: ...ation Removing Dust 1 Dust can be deposited on either the optical window not a big problem to cure or on the CCD faceplate difficult to eliminate entirely When small particles collect on the window th...

Page 23: ...isturbed renew it with fresh compound before reassembling 7 Replace all the camera parts in reverse order and the job is done Dealing with condensation The SXVR H16 is designed to avoid condensation b...

Page 24: ...ative to the CCD surface To make an adjustment slacken the appropriate set screw and then turn the adjacent cap head screw in the required direction Complete the adjustment by re tightening the set sc...

Page 25: ...ly be used for normal purposes described in the standard operating instructions and within the relevant safety standards of the country where the equipment is used 2 Repairs under guarantee will be fr...

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