Canon’s monstrous CMOS sensor goes meteor watching

Canon first revealed its ultrahigh-sensitivity CMOS image sensor back in 2010, where its gargantuan proportions were given as 202 × 205 mm (7.95 × 8.07 in) – almost 40 times the size of a 35 mm full-frame CMOS sensor.

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A few of these in space linked to my computer would be good I think.

I need a new camera but that one’s a bit unwieldy.

Bubblecar said:

I need a new camera but that one’s a bit unwieldy.

It does need to be kept more steady else you will notice blur.

I guess a 1000mm x 1000mm is probably not too far away either.

In the early days of digital photography, CMOS was not used for astronomy, because of its dark current. That’s the background noise that occurs when looking at nothing. Not a problem for normal photography but a pest for astronomy. CCD was always used.

I haven’t heard much about CCD recently.

mollwollfumble said:

In the early days of digital photography, CMOS was not used for astronomy, because of its dark current. That’s the background noise that occurs when looking at nothing. Not a problem for normal photography but a pest for astronomy. CCD was always used.

I haven’t heard much about CCD recently.

I was chatting to a guy who does a bit of astro photography but he said he takes several shots the same and layers them up in photoshop. Photoshop can combine the shots and compare the noise in each one, then cancel it out.

pommiejohn said:

mollwollfumble said:

In the early days of digital photography, CMOS was not used for astronomy, because of its dark current. That’s the background noise that occurs when looking at nothing. Not a problem for normal photography but a pest for astronomy. CCD was always used.

I haven’t heard much about CCD recently.

I was chatting to a guy who does a bit of astro photography but he said he takes several shots the same and layers them up in photoshop. Photoshop can combine the shots and compare the noise in each one, then cancel it out.

Thanks. I didn’t know Photoshop could do that. The software I’ve heard of is Registrax, which does multilayering with sub-pixel movements to get a result that has higher resolution than the original images.

Here’s a nice little article on the difference between CCD and CMOS sensors, as applied to astrophotography, by an astrophotography CMOS manufacturer.

https://www.atik-cameras.com/news/difference-between-ccd-cmos-sensors/

“CCD sensors are often referred to as ‘dumb’ sensors and require a lot of external circuitry. However, this also means that other circuits on the CCD are adding very little signal to an image. This gives us great controllability as camera designers to optimise our cameras for low light imaging. All this clocking makes the sensors slow to readout. Traditionally, this isn’t a problem in astronomy where we prioritise quality over speed. CCD sensors are also relatively expensive, particularly when you begin looking at large sensors”.

“CMOS uses lower quality 12 bit analog to digital converters (ADCs) compared to the high quality external 16 bit ADCs we can use with CCDs. The ADC and image sensor are on the same silicon die, which can give very low read noise. Read noise on a CMOS sensor is linked to well depth. Overall, there’s actually little difference between CMOS and Sony CCD sensors.”

But

What I call “background noise” they call “amp glow” which is a big problem fro CMOS but it “there are ways of controlling and minimising the effects of this, both on the sensor and through image calibration.”.

mollwollfumble said:

pommiejohn said:

mollwollfumble said:

In the early days of digital photography, CMOS was not used for astronomy, because of its dark current. That’s the background noise that occurs when looking at nothing. Not a problem for normal photography but a pest for astronomy. CCD was always used.

I haven’t heard much about CCD recently.

I was chatting to a guy who does a bit of astro photography but he said he takes several shots the same and layers them up in photoshop. Photoshop can combine the shots and compare the noise in each one, then cancel it out.

Thanks. I didn’t know Photoshop could do that. The software I’ve heard of is Registrax, which does multilayering with sub-pixel movements to get a result that has higher resolution than the original images.

Here’s a nice little article on the difference between CCD and CMOS sensors, as applied to astrophotography, by an astrophotography CMOS manufacturer.

https://www.atik-cameras.com/news/difference-between-ccd-cmos-sensors/

“CCD sensors are often referred to as ‘dumb’ sensors and require a lot of external circuitry. However, this also means that other circuits on the CCD are adding very little signal to an image. This gives us great controllability as camera designers to optimise our cameras for low light imaging. All this clocking makes the sensors slow to readout. Traditionally, this isn’t a problem in astronomy where we prioritise quality over speed. CCD sensors are also relatively expensive, particularly when you begin looking at large sensors”.

“CMOS uses lower quality 12 bit analog to digital converters (ADCs) compared to the high quality external 16 bit ADCs we can use with CCDs. The ADC and image sensor are on the same silicon die, which can give very low read noise. Read noise on a CMOS sensor is linked to well depth. Overall, there’s actually little difference between CMOS and Sony CCD sensors.”

But

What I call “background noise” they call “amp glow” which is a big problem fro CMOS but it “there are ways of controlling and minimising the effects of this, both on the sensor and through image calibration.”.

Maybe astronomers could suggest future improvements to Photoshop for astro photography.

Must be heaps of stuff that could be done.

Tau.Neutrino said:

mollwollfumble said:

pommiejohn said:

I was chatting to a guy who does a bit of astro photography but he said he takes several shots the same and layers them up in photoshop. Photoshop can combine the shots and compare the noise in each one, then cancel it out.

Thanks. I didn’t know Photoshop could do that. The software I’ve heard of is Registrax, which does multilayering with sub-pixel movements to get a result that has higher resolution than the original images.

Here’s a nice little article on the difference between CCD and CMOS sensors, as applied to astrophotography, by an astrophotography CMOS manufacturer.

https://www.atik-cameras.com/news/difference-between-ccd-cmos-sensors/

“CCD sensors are often referred to as ‘dumb’ sensors and require a lot of external circuitry. However, this also means that other circuits on the CCD are adding very little signal to an image. This gives us great controllability as camera designers to optimise our cameras for low light imaging. All this clocking makes the sensors slow to readout. Traditionally, this isn’t a problem in astronomy where we prioritise quality over speed. CCD sensors are also relatively expensive, particularly when you begin looking at large sensors”.

“CMOS uses lower quality 12 bit analog to digital converters (ADCs) compared to the high quality external 16 bit ADCs we can use with CCDs. The ADC and image sensor are on the same silicon die, which can give very low read noise. Read noise on a CMOS sensor is linked to well depth. Overall, there’s actually little difference between CMOS and Sony CCD sensors.”

But

What I call “background noise” they call “amp glow” which is a big problem fro CMOS but it “there are ways of controlling and minimising the effects of this, both on the sensor and through image calibration.”.

Maybe astronomers could suggest future improvements to Photoshop for astro photography.

Must be heaps of stuff that could be done.

Start by making it free?

Are there any astro photography software available?

https://www.google.com/search?q=astro+photography+software

heaps

http://www.astropix.com/html/i_astrop/software.html

http://www.startools.org/

https://astrobackyard.com/astro-photography-tool/

https://www.reddit.com/r/astrophotography/comments/2acnqb/the_great_list_of_astrophotography_software/

…

Tau.Neutrino said:

Are there any astro photography software available?

https://www.google.com/search?q=astro+photography+software

heaps

http://www.astropix.com/html/i_astrop/software.html

http://www.startools.org/

https://astrobackyard.com/astro-photography-tool/

https://www.reddit.com/r/astrophotography/comments/2acnqb/the_great_list_of_astrophotography_software/

…

Any of those that I could use to photograph stars at midday – by rejecting the blue background light of the sky?

mollwollfumble said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Are there any astro photography software available?

https://www.google.com/search?q=astro+photography+software

heaps

http://www.astropix.com/html/i_astrop/software.html

http://www.startools.org/

https://astrobackyard.com/astro-photography-tool/

https://www.reddit.com/r/astrophotography/comments/2acnqb/the_great_list_of_astrophotography_software/

…

Any of those that I could use to photograph stars at midday – by rejecting the blue background light of the sky?

I’m not familiar with any of those programs, but I should imagine that blue light can be taken out as that would be a filter.

Tau.Neutrino said:

mollwollfumble said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Are there any astro photography software available?

https://www.google.com/search?q=astro+photography+software

heaps

http://www.astropix.com/html/i_astrop/software.html

http://www.startools.org/

https://astrobackyard.com/astro-photography-tool/

https://www.reddit.com/r/astrophotography/comments/2acnqb/the_great_list_of_astrophotography_software/

…

Any of those that I could use to photograph stars at midday – by rejecting the blue background light of the sky?

I’m not familiar with any of those programs, but I should imagine that blue light can be taken out as that would be a filter.

Ive bookmarked those links.

I didn’t know they existed.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Canon’s monstrous CMOS sensor goes meteor watching

Canon first revealed its ultrahigh-sensitivity CMOS image sensor back in 2010, where its gargantuan proportions were given as 202 × 205 mm (7.95 × 8.07 in) – almost 40 times the size of a 35 mm full-frame CMOS sensor.

more…

> Canon installed the giant CMOS sensor in the one-meter Schmidt camera at the Kiso Observatory, located at Mount Ontake in Japan and operated by the University of Tokyo. Doing so enabled the first video recording of meteors “with an equivalent apparent magnitude of 10, a level so dark that image capture had not been possible until now.”

Very impressive. I wonder …

Time varying signals on the sub-second scale have been detected by radio astronomers since 1967. I’ve never heard of anyone even attempting such time resolution from optical or infrared images until now. But perhaps I haven’t been looking.

Videos of faint meteors is a great choice for first application. It would tell an awful lot more than a still image about the rotation rate, thermal heating, breakup. Drop a spectrograph in front of it and you’d get the chemical composition of both the meteor and the upper atmosphere (mesosphere) as well. The mesosphere is where most meteors burn up and is too high for balloons and too low for spacecraft.