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Opticstar DS-142C ICE
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Peltier Cooled - Long Exposure - Sensitive - Colour Imaging
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- Sony ICX205AK 1.4 Megapixel 1/2" CCD
- Colour CCD: 1434 x 1050 pixels
- Pixel size 4.65µm x 4.65µm
- Quantum Efficiency (mono version): 42%
- Noise reduction electronics
- Gain functionality in hardware
- Preview mode @ 1434x1050: 2.5fps
- Raw 16-bit image transfer @ 1434x1050: 1 second approximately
- Colour Binning: 1x1, 2x2, 4x4
- Data output: 16-bit or 8-bit raw
- Exposure time: 20ms to over 1 hour
- Robust all metal case
- Sealed sensor and electronics
- Peltier cooled with fan assist,
up to 30°C below ambient
- USB 2.0 high-speed interface
- Focusing preview mode
- 2.5 meters in-situ USB cable
- High quality regulated PSU
- Full Nebulosity software included for camera control and image processing
- Bundled plug-ins: AstroArt & MaxIm DL
- Microsoft Windows (32-bit & 64-bit) 2000/XP/Vista/7/8
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The Opticstar hand-selected hi-grade A+ sensor installed in this camera
is noted for its uniform surface response and low noise required for
low light applications.
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Outline
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The DS-142C ICE Peltier cooled camera with fan-assist is a native 1.4 mega-pixel
16-bit colour CCD imager with a large and very sensitive Sony SuperHAD
Chip of 1/2" diagonal (ICX205AK).
The DS-142C ICE uses the all new Z-MAX high-speed platform which adds a host of
desirable features to this high quality camera.
Unlike other cameras in its class, gain support, noise reduction and black level
are all implemented in the camera hardware and applied to the signal prior to the
data been sent to the PC, thus ensuring the highest quality signal and brightest
image possible at maximum speeds of 2.5fps @ 1434x1050 in uncompressed RAW format.
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Hardware Gain
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The camera's advanced features can easily be demostrated in StarView. The StarView
mode is a real time video mode with exposure times up to 10 seconds per frame. There
is no need to use any bias frames or perform any colour synthesis. StarView outputs
the images in colour by default. Deep sky objects become visible in real time, making
focusing much easier and quicker.
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The StarView mode above demonstrates the Gain function in real time (10 second exposures). The image on the
left has 100% Gain applied to it. The image on the right has 50% Gain applied to it. These images do not use any
dark/flat/bias frames. In StarView mode the images are shown in colour as standard. Although StarView is part
of the camera runtime software, it is accessible from Nebulosity, AstroArt and MaxIm DL.
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The Gain function does not simply boost the signal evenly, it also improves the signal-to-noise (S/N)
ratio dramatically. In fact, as the Gain increases the S/N ratio increase is 10:1.
This is possible due to the camera's build-in noise reduction electronics.
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StarView mode at 100% Gain showing the M57 and M13 deep sky objects. Exposure time 10 seconds per frame.
With a 7" Maksutov at f9.
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Sample Astronomical DS-142C ICE Images
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NGC7635 cluster by Roy Hollister.
8" f4.5 Newtonian
15 frames x 10m. Binned 2x2 to match sky conditions
Guided with Opticstar AG-130M COOLAIR
Click to enlarge to: 624 x 453 pixels.
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NGC7023 nebula by Roy Hollister.
8" f4.5 Newtonian
10 frames x 5m. Binned 2x2 to match sky conditions.
Guided with Opticstar AG-130M COOLAIR
Click to enlarge to: 616 x 449 pixels.
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M3 cluster by Roy Hollister.
7" f9 Maksutov-Cassegrain
DS-142C ICE, single frame, 5m. Hardware Gain:30%
Guided with Opticstar AG-130M COOLAIR
Click to enlarge to: 1360 x 1024 pixels.
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M1 nebula by Roy Hollister.
10" f4.8 Newtonian
DS-142C ICE, 3x10m & 3x5m. Hardware Gain:30%
Guided with Opticstar AG-130M COOLAIR
Click to enlarge to: 1360 x 1024 pixels.
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Blue Snowball nebula by Roy Hollister.
DS-142C ICE, 8x5m subs. Hardware Gain:30%
Guided with Opticstar AG-130M COOLAIR
Click to enlarge to: 1360 x 1024 pixels.
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M27 nebula by Roy Hollister.
10" f4.8 Newtonian
DS-142C ICE, 15 x 2m subs. Hardware Gain:30%
Guided with Opticstar AG-130M COOLAIR
Click to enlarge to: 1360 x 1024 pixels.
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M76 nebula by Roy Hollister.
10" f4.8 Newtonian
DS-142C ICE, 16 x 5m subs. Hardware Gain:30%
Guided with Opticstar AG-130M COOLAIR
Click to enlarge to: 1360 x 1024 pixels.
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Merope by Roy Hollister.
7" f15 Rumak Maksutov
DS-142C ICE
Guided with Opticstar AG-130M COOLAIR
Click to enlarge to: 499 x 499 pixels.
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Asteroid 41630 animation sequence by Roy Hollister
on Nov 2008, 10" f4.8 Newtonian and DS-142C ICE.
Guided with Opticstar AG-130M COOLAIR
First discovered at the Kitt Peak Observatory,
by the University of Arizona’s Spacewatch project
on September 21 st 2000.
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Merope by Roy Hollister.
10" f4.8 Newtonian
DS-142C ICE, 3x5m. Hardware Gain:30%
Guided with Opticstar AG-130M COOLAIR
Click to enlarge to: 1360 x 1024 pixels.
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A substantial heatsink, over five times the mass of the typical heatsink in
comparable cameras, rapidly draws the heat away from the sensor via a powerful
Peltier thermocouple. This heat is then rapidly dissipated into the atmosphere
with the assistance of an essential 60mm diameter fan thus bringing noise levels
down to a minimum.
All binning modes produce colour output.
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The quantum efficiency of the Sony ICX205. Monochrome version shown.
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The camera incorporates a photographic thread and can be mounted on photographic
tripods.
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The DS-142C ICE camera kit includes carry case, power supply unit, two adapters, setup guide and CD.
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Powering the cooling mechanism.
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High Quality Construction
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The camera electronics and sensor are housed inside a high quality
aluminium body that entirely seals the sensor and on-board electronics
from the outside environment. This is important as it protects the camera
internals from high humidity and water running down the telescope and into
the camera damaging the electronics or sensor, quite common in inadequate
camera designs.
The camera relies for fast data transfers on an efficient USB2.0 sub-system
specially designed for the DS-142C ICE. The camera is powered via a high quality
regulated mains power supply included with the camera and comes with all cables,
adapters and software needed to be able to use the camera out of the box.
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All measurements in millimetres.
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Specification
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| Model |
Opticstar DS-142C ICE |
| Sensor type |
Sony ICX205AK CCD, progressive scan |
| Sensor size |
7.60mm x 6.20mm (1/2") |
| Resolution |
1.4 Megapixels, 1434 x 1050 pixels |
| Pixel size |
4.65µm x 4.65µm |
| Binning modes |
1x1, 2x2, 4x4, (all in colour) |
| Preview mode |
1434x1050 at 2.5 frames per second |
| On Board Functions |
Gain x1024, Noise Reduction, Black Level |
| Dark Current |
0.15e~/pix/s (cooled) |
| Readout speed |
20, 10MHz |
| Data output |
16-bit raw, many other file formats as supported by the applications |
| Exposure time |
user defined from 20ms upwards. |
| Raw 16-bit image transfer |
1 second approximately at 1434x1050 |
| Cooling |
Peltier cooled with fan assist, up to 30°C below ambient |
| Optical interface |
C-mount |
| Computer interface |
USB 2.0 |
| Housing |
Robust all metal case and sealed electronics |
| Dimensions |
71mm (W) x 95mm (H) x 86.7mm (D) |
| Weight |
730 grams |
| Bundled Software |
Software drivers for Windows (64-bit & 32-bit) 2000/XP/Vista/7/8.
Nebulosity software for camera control and image processing.
Plug-ins for MaxIm DL, AstroArt and Nebulosity.
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| Computer requirements |
Microsoft Windows (64-bit & 32-bit) 2000/XP/Vista/7/8; USB 2.0; |
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The technical data is correct at the time of writing.
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Nebulosity Software
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Nebulosity is designed to be a powerful, but simple to use camera control and image
processing application for Opticstar CCD cameras. Its goal is to suit people ranging from the
novice imager who wants to create his or her first images to the advanced imager who wants
a convenient, flexible capture application for use in the field. In it, you get a host of
purpose-built powerful tools to make the most out of your images (e.g., Digital Development
Processing, traditional alignment/stacking (equatorial and alt-az), Drizzle alignment/stacking,
Bad Pixel Mapping, real-time tricolour histograms for colour balancing, star tightening via
edge detection, adaptive scaling of stacks, Canon CR2/CRW RAW Bayer matrix loading,
32/96-bit accuracy, etc.)
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Nebulosity's user interface for Windows.
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Nebulosity Features
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Simple, but powerful interface.
- All basic controls are present on the main screen. No need to navigate through lots of menus during an imaging session. Nebulosity was designed to be easily operated in the field by someone who actually operates it in an actual field.
- By default, all displays are auto-scaled. Any scaling (including inverted) of the data onto the display possible using easy sliders.
- Histogram gives a quick view of how much of the valid data range is being used during each capture.
- Pixel statistics / area statistics pop-up window.
- Zoom button lets you rescale the displayed image quickly.
- Measure Distance tool lets you measure the distance (CCD pixels, arc-seconds, or arc-minutes) among up to 3 points.
- Can act as a FITS file viewer for Windows (double-click or drag-and-drop).
- Can write / run scripts to automate captures.
- Unlimited undo/redo (0, 3, or unlimited levels of undo).
- Small clock to show local time, UTC, GMST, local sidereal, or Polaris RA.
- Capture control.
- All basic capture parameters present on main screen. Duration of exposure, number of exposures per captured series, delay between captures, name of series, camera gain and camera offset all in one simple panel.
- Times may be specified in either seconds or milliseconds.
- Quick Preview button captures one frame with current settings and displays it on the screen without saving. Helps in focus, composition, and tuning of capture parameters.
- Frame and Focus mode: Loops a quick, binned image to assist in rapid initial focus and framing.
- Fine Focus mode: Loops a very quick image around a selected star in full resolution to fine-tune focus.
- Capture one-shot colour in RAW CCD format or reconstruct colour on the fly ñ your choice.
- Automatic setting of camera offset.
- Capture status able to be shown in large red display for easy viewing when away from computer.
- Multiple file formats supported.
- Read virtually any FITS file to process images from virtually any camera (RGB colour, black and white, compressed or uncompressed, any bit depth).
- Captured data saved in FITS as 16-bits (0-65535) per colour channel, 32-bit floating point per colour channel, or in 15-bits (0-32767) per colour channel.
- One-shot colour data captures may be saved in RAW CCD format or as reconstructed full-colour images in an RGB FITS format (Maxim / AstroArt style or ImagesPlus style) or 3 separate FITS files (the latter only for capture and subsequent use in other programs).
- Captured data saved in either lossless compressed FITS according to the FITS standard or uncompressed FITS.
- These same save formats available for any loaded image, making Nebulosity serve to convert between many FITS formats (just select your output format using the settings on the Preferences menu).
- Save current displayed image in BMP or JPG format (24-bit colour) as displayed.
- Save current image in 16 bit/colour (48-bit colour) uncompressed TIFF, compressed TIFF, or PNG (compressed) format.
- Load Canon CR2 format RAW (Rebel XT, 20, 20Da, 5D, etc) and Canon CRW format RAW as pure Bayer-matrix RAW data.
- Load 8/24 bit PNG, TIFF, JPG, and BMP (scaled to 16/48-bit) or 16/48-bit PNG and TIFF.
- Batch convert from FITS to 16/48-bit PNG or compressed TIFF.
- Batch convert from CR2, CRW, PNG, TIFF, JPG, and BMP to FITS.
- Camera support.
- Meade DSI, DSI Pro, DSI-II, and DSI-II Pro (Windows and OS X).
- Orion StarShoot.
- Artemis / Atik 16 (all varieties, including HR).
- SAC10.
- SAC7 / ìSCî long-exposure modified webcams / Atik 1&2 via the parallel port or via the ShoeString LXUSB adapter for all-USB (no parallel port) long-exposure imaging.
- Canon DIGIC II DSLRs (Windows and OS X): EOS 1D/1Ds Mk II/Mk IIN, 1Ds Mk II, 20D/20Da, 350D / Rebel XT, 5D, 30D, 400D / Rebel XTi). Captures are to FITS files with pure Bayer-matrix data extracted on the fly (or ultra-fast colour JPEGs - your choice). Bulb-mode exposures via ShoeString DSUSB adapter, serial port adapters, or parallel port adapters (parallel only available on Windows).
- Simulated camera.
- Virtually any camera supported for image processing - above supported for capture as well.
- Internal calculations.
- All data stored internally in 32-bit floating point per colour channel. For B&W or RAW images, this equates to 32-bits and for colour images, this equates to 96-bits in all math routines. You will never have overflow (saturation) or overflow or quantization issues as a result.
- Critical math routines computed in double-precision (64-bit per channel) floating point.
- Since all captures even from one-shot colour cameras can be done in B&W mode (RAW CCD data) and since memory for colour images is only allocated when viewing in colour, memory requirements can be reduced by capturing one-shot colour data in RAW format for machines with less RAM.
- All calculations done using pointer arithmetic for high-speed operation.
- Image processing.
- Dark / flat / and bias frame pre-processing of B&W, RAW one-shot colour, and RGB one-shot colour sets of images.
- Auto-scaling of dark frames to compensate for differences in exposure time or temperature.
- Create and apply Bad Pixel Maps as an alternative way of removing hot pixels.
- Versatile Levels / Power Stretch tool lets you apply not only simple linear stretching of your images, but non-linear stretches as well. Pre- and post- stretch histograms interactively displayed and an ROI preview is available.
- Digital Development Processing (DDP). A technique to make CCD images look more like film images by using a hyperbolic scaling of the data. Here, the basic technique is enhanced to allow easy darkening of the background at the same time.
- Star Tightening. A technique to sharpen stars using an edge-detection algorithm (does not leave the artifacts found).
- Grade a series of images to determine the sharpest / best of the set.
- Line filter reconstruction for one-shot cameras. Optimized reconstruction of RAW images taken using line filters. General mode plus modes optimized for H-alpha and O-III/H-beta on CMYG arrays.
- Align and stack a series of images using translation (for equatorially mounted telescopes) or translation + rotation (alt-az or equatorial) or translation + rotation + scaling. Unequal image sizes supported and output either the stack or the individual aligned frames.
- Drizzle alignment / stacking and resolution enhancement for either equatorial or alt-az (translation + rotation).
- Colours in Motion: Simultaneous over-sampling alignment/stacking and De-Bayer of one-shot colour images to significantly decrease colour error and increase resolution. For one-shot colour imagers, this improves resolution and reduces colour error.
- Adaptive scaling of combined data (stacks) to use full 16-bit range (gives you the best features of adding and averaging frames).
- Average a series of images without alignment (e.g., for combining darks, flats, bias frames, etc.)
- Tools to set the minimum of an image to zero (useful if a computation has taken it above 65535 and you wish to save the image) and to rescale the intensity of an image (multiply each pixel by a constant.)
- Colour balance adjust (offset and scaling) with real-time 3-colour histograms for easy, accurate balancing. Luminance extraction provided as well.
- De-mosaic a RAW one-shot colour image for any of the supported cameras. Both interactive and batch-mode supported.
- Automatic demosaic of Canon CR2 files with control over white balance for stock and IR-filter modified cameras.
- Manual De-mosaic of RAW one-shot colour images from RGB or CMYG cameras. Full control over pixel aspect ratio and over colour balancing / mixing during conversion.
- 2x2 binning of images: addition, averaging, or adaptive.
- Blurring of images (3-levels).
- Crop tool.
- Rotation and mirroring of images.
- Pixel squaring.
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Auto-Guiding
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The Opticstar deep sky cameras (DS-xxx) can be used in conjunction with
the Opticstar AG-130M COOLAIR Auto-guiding Kit to deliver
a complete imaging solution.
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AVI Converters / Tools
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A range of freely available software applications are available to convert a number
of JPG and/or BMP files into an AVI. The following list includes a number of AVI
converters / tools that you may wish to try for their suitability.
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Opticstar does not guarantee or endorse any of the above 3rd party software in any way, implied or otherwise.
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Notice
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We are constantly checking the accuracy of the technical data. We are prepared to provide
more detailed information on request. Technical data is subject to change without notice.
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International Customers
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Customers outside the European Union can order Opticstar cameras at our international
website: www.opticstar-ccd.com.
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Opticstar Showroom
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Opening Hours
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updated: 2nd January 2013
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Day Opening Hours
Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm
Saturday 10am - 2pm
Sunday CLOSED
We are closed on Sundays and public holidays.
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Willmann Bell
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Books for Astronomy
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updated: 15th May 2012
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Acclaimed books from Willmann Bell...
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Opticstar News
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Imaging Brochure
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posted: 17th August 2012
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Download the Opticstar imaging catalogue here.
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Sample Images
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Opticstar PL-130M CoolAir
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posted: 10th February 2009
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An impressive 9.4 megapixel mosaic of the Moon by Herwig Sulzbacher with
the Opticstar PL-130M.
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Articles
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Pixel Response Effects On CCD Gain Calibration
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The gain of a CCD camera is the conversion between...
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A&M 152mm f/8 Review
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"Fantastic Performance" "Beauty of a Ferrari"
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updated: 25th March 2009
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Read the latest review about the A&M 152mm f/8 A&M/TMB on
Cloudy Nights.
According to the review this telescope combines the "beauty of a Ferrari" with
"fantastic performance". The review also states that "the manufacturer's claims are valid".
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Feedback
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We want to hear your comments.
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Online Shopping
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Credit & Debit Cards
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updated: 21st February 2012
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We accept all the credit and debit cards shown above. Online payments are
cleared by Barclays. Online payment integration by Worldpay. Please read our
Terms & Conditions
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