Handbook for the SX-56 Full Frame camera Issue 1, 25
th
October 2017
The camera control and image windows
At this time, the cooling will be switched off and the readout will show something close to ambient.
Although it is not necessary for initial testing, you can turn on the cooling ‘radio button’ and check that
the CCD temperature falls to the nominal -10C setting.
If you are testing during daylight, it will be difficult to capture an unsaturated image, as the shutter
speed is limited to around 0.05 seconds minimum (exposures of less than 0.01 seconds will not open
the shutter at all). You can overcome this by using a very small aperture lens, or a ‘pinhole’ to project
the image onto the CCD. A suitable pinhole can be made by sticking a piece of aluminium foil to the
input adaptor and punching a tiny hole in the centre, using a pin or needle. If the camera is on a tele-
scope, you can try using ND filters, or cutting a small hole in a card aperture cover, to limit the light in-
put. Clearly, none of this is necessary if testing at night, using a telescope on a dark sky.
To capture an image, click on the ‘Exposure’ tab and set a suitable time - about 0.1 seconds for day-
light, or 10 seconds for a star field test. Now press ‘Start Exposure’ - you will probably hear the camera
shutter open and close and, about 7 seconds later, an image will appear in the display frame. Some fo-
cus refinement will probably be needed, but, once done, you should get a good image frame. As it is
quite likely that the image is very dim, try setting the histogram option to ‘Sliders’ and then moving
them to see a clear image. You can also zoom into the image to check the details and focus quality.
