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It had been well reported that the first SXV guide
cameras did not have particularly good sensitivity. For a
page highlighting these issues see http://www.schmid-koenig.de/astro/instruments/sxvh9guider.htm However
starlight has changed to using ICX405 CCD's in their latest
guiders to enhance sensitivity. http://products.sel.sony.com/semi/PDF/ICX405AL.pdf From
the data sheet these CCD's are very nice devices. So
anyway, I bought the new guider, plugged it into my guide
scope and focused an a bright star. Then I entered a series
of M objects around Leo into ACP and asked for pictures of
all. In every case the imaging failed as Maxim could not
find a star to guide on. The problem was the camera was just
not sensitive enough. The problem did not seem to
be the CCD as the recent Sony devices have a good
reputation. Other possibles were readout and thermal noise. As
the guide camera was not going to be much use in an automated ACP
type set up I was either going to have to ask for a refund to try
to improve things..... The next couple of pages describe
adding a cooler to the SXV guider and what happens when this is
done! |
