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Alan Holmes Founder and President

New products at SBIG. Alan Holmes Founder and President. SBIG is Now Part Of Aplegen. New Management intends to: increase astronomical product research and development adds new cameras with features suited to life sciences applications such as: Gel Imaging Fluorescence microscopy

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Alan Holmes Founder and President

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  1. New products at SBIG Alan Holmes Founder and President

  2. SBIG is Now Part Of Aplegen • New Management intends to: • increase astronomical product research and development • adds new cameras with features suited to life sciences applications such as: • Gel Imaging • Fluorescence microscopy • New CEO is Ron Bissinger, known for amateur exoplanet measurements

  3. Past SBIG Cameras over the last 23 years • ST-4 (my baby) • ST-6 • ST-5/ 237/ PixCel 237 • ST-7/ 8/ 9/ 10/ 2000 line • STL-11000/ 6303/ 1001 line • STX-16803/ 6303 • ST-402/ 1603/ 3200 • SG-4

  4. New Camera Models in Last Year • ST-I • ST-8300 and STF-8300 • STX-6303

  5. ST-I is a new Guider/Planet Camera

  6. ST-I Features • 640 x 480 pixel interline CCD • 7.4 micron square pixels • Exposures as short as 1 millisecond • 16 bit A/D converter • 10 electrons read noise • powered off USB port • Shutter for automatic dark frames • Fits in 1.25 inch eyepiece tube

  7. ST-I Comes with a Case and Software

  8. A Guiding package is Available that is all Most Users Need

  9. Planetary Imaging is also Possible (Not the best but it’s mine!)

  10. ST-8300 is our most Popular Camera • Features • 8.3 million pixels • 16 bit A/D • 38 degree C cooling • 5.4x5.4 micron pixels - good for refractors • EXCELLENT low dark current • Just went on sale at a great price - $1795 US

  11. 5 (and 8) Position Filter Wheels are Available

  12. The ST-8300 is capable of Great Images! Peter Clausen

  13. Peter Clausen

  14. New STF-8300 Provides Faster Readout • 10 Megapixels / Second • Full Frame Image Buffer • Readout and Download Simultaneously • Download Full Frame < 1 sec. • User Rechargeable Desiccant Plug • Internal Image Processing – Raw or Processed • Even-illumination (Photometric) Shutter • 32-bit and 64- bit drivers for all Windows O/S • Equinox Image and Equinox Pro for Mac • Base Price $2495 US

  15. STX-16803 is our largest CCD Camera • 4096x4096 pixels • 9 micron pixels • Excellent Cooling

  16. Martin Pugh

  17. STX Images -Johannes Schedler - Austria M97-Owl Nebula (too far north for Santiago!)

  18. More STX Images from Johannes NGC 5033

  19. New STX-6303 is Excellent for Narrow Band Imaging and Faint Objects Adriana Sherman, Guatemala

  20. New Accessory Products at SBIG • Differential Guiding • ST-8300 Off Axis Guider

  21. Differential Guiding Solves a Difficult Problem • When guiding at long focal lengths with a guide scope, the scope-to-scope alignment drifts due to: • Gravity direction changes • Thermal effects • mirror flop • mechanical shifts • Differential guiding eliminates all of these

  22. SBIG’s New Technique: Differential Guiding * • An artificial star is created near the imaging CCD focal plane • Beam of light from artificial star exits telescope • Beam is retro-reflected into guide scope • Guide scope views both artificial star and background star • Separation of artificial and real stars is maintained by guiding * Patented

  23. Differential Guiding Diagram Guide Scope Guide Camera Retro- Reflector Imaging Camera Main Scope LED

  24. Guiding is Adjusted to Maintain X and Y Offsets Constant Artificial Star X Y Guide Star

  25. Retroreflector is Derived from Corner Cube and Dove Prism Corner Cube Dove Prism Beam is exactly retro-reflected, and displaced to outside the telescope aperture. Retro-reflected angle is insensitive to small mechanical misalignments.

  26. Testing was Performed in my Backyard

  27. A Celestron Edge 14 was used for the Test

  28. Retroreflector Assembly and Guide Scope (Hutech 50 mm F/5)

  29. ST-8300 and Artificial Star Generator

  30. Conventionally Guided Image - 30 minutes

  31. Differential Guided Image - 3 x 30 Minutes - no Shifts!

  32. It Works Great! (ST-8300C Data Added)

  33. New Off-Axis Guider for ST-8300

  34. Guider Ray Trace Diagram • Allows guiding in front of the filters • Also provides focal reduction for 2X more area ST-I CCD Imager CCD

  35. It uses an ST-I and Mounts to Filter Wheel Low Profile – Adds only 19mm backfocus to camera and filter wheel (total about 58mm) Built-in relay lenses and 0.7X reducer doubles the field of view of the ST-i Guide camera can be mounted at 90 degrees x 4

  36. St-I Guider Image at F/3.5! Stars are excellent for guiding

  37. Celestron Edge 14 Image using OAG With ST-8300 Alan Holmes

  38. OAG Makes Guiding Narrow Band Images Easy Peter Clausen

  39. -Astrophotography Hints- Stray Light and Flat Fields

  40. An Example of the Problem - An Expensive Refractor with an ST-8300 • Center to edge variation = 6% • There is NO vignetting in either image! • “Hot Spot” is caused by glints off internal cylindrical surfaces near CCD Camera Green Flat Field IR (940 nm) Flat Field

  41. Measuring Stray Light: My “CCD View” Pinhole Camera • Chamber window of ST-3200 replaced with a tiny lens View of my office through a short 1.25 inch nosepiece

  42. Looking into that High-End Refractor Actual Aperture! Bad Stuff! Problem is glints off of “black” anodized surfaces. Total Stray Light is 8% Green, 18% IR

  43. $5 Million Peso (!) RC Scope Aperture Edge Green - 13% Stray Light Near IR - 37% Stray Light

  44. Why is this important? - Astronomical Features have very Low Contrast against the Sky Background 9% contrast 1% contrast (Images are from a Dark Site) Tony Hallas

  45. Stray Light is also a Serious Problem for Photometry Vignetting Stray Light Sum (Looks like vignetting but it’s not) Using a flat field to correct an image with stray light incorrectly increases brightness of stars near edge of field

  46. A Collection of “Black” Objects Imaged at Near Infrared Wavelengths (940 nm) White Business Card Black Felt (79% reflectivity Black Paper Flat Black Paint

  47. Flat Black Paint can solve this Problem - User Flat Field Images STL-11K - Flat Field with Moonlite Focuser and ribbed draw tube Flat field after painting draw tube with flat black paint

  48. How to detect the problem yourself • Point your telescope at a flat field screen • Put your eye at the point where you usually insert the camera • Look into the tube

  49. What can you do? • Paint black anodized surfaces Flat Black • I prefer barbeque black - low temperature paints may use dyes that are transparent beyond 700 nm • Add thin shim rings to work as knife edges baffles • Do NOT use incandescent bulbs for flat fields • Use white LEDS instead • Better, but still not perfect • Sky flats may help - matches spectrum better for LRGB imaging • Use flat field for each color if doing RGB images • Photometrists should map response by moving stars around in field to detect problem

  50. It is Worth the Effort! Tony Hallas

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