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CCD Cameras

Imaging Basics

The following outlines the basics involved in acquiring an image of the night sky, whether for pretty pictures or scientific purposes. This lesson serves as an overview where other lessons will provide deeper instruction on the individual topics. This lesson provides a deeper look into what is required to acquire images of scientific quality. While most cameras these days make imaging almost “point and shoot”, astronomical imaging requires additional considerations and processes. This lesson will provide an introduction to those necessary steps

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SLOAN ugriz Filters

Here we introduce one of the two standardized set of filters you will use on projects with BRIEF: SLOAN ugriz.

Linearity and Saturation

Saturation and Linearity are closely related in CCD imaging and need to be managed. A CCD pixel begins an image essentially empty. As the photons are collected, the pixel well begins to fill. At some point, the pixel well will become saturated and unable to hold more...

Full Width Half Maximum

Remembering from the CCD Overview lesson, each star: • Is the same size on the focal plane - a Point Source• Each point source has a specific shape and size at the CCD chip known as a Point Spread Function (PSF) • PSF is mostly determined by Seeing• Seeing is the...

Camera Overview

Charged Coupled Devices (CCDs) were invented in the 1970s as memory devices. However, their light sensitive properties made them ideal for imaging applications. These improved light gathering power of telescopes significantly over what film cameras were producing....

UBVRI & JC filters

Here we discuss one of the two standardized filter sets that you will use in BRIEF projects: Johnson/Cousins

Binning

Binning is a method of combining pixels on a CCD chip into one “super” pixel. This provides some advantages and disadvantages.

SNR

For any electronic measuring system, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) characterizes the quality of a measurement and determines the ultimate performance of the system. With a CCD (charge-coupled device) image sensor, the SNR value specifically represents the ratio of...

FITS Files

FITS stands for `Flexible Image Transport System' and is the standard astronomical data format endorsed by both NASA and the IAU.FITS is more than an image format (ex. PNG, JPG, or GIF). It is primarily designed to store scientific data sets consisting of...

CCD Filters Overview

All CCD cameras collect one thing: Photons. The result is a matrix containing a number of photon counts per pixel. As a result, a CCD camera is neither black and white, or color. It is simply a “photon recorder”. To get information from our target, and to make color...