CCD Astronomical Imaging

Using dedicated cooled cameras

David Ratledge

Introduction

The arrival of CCD imaging cameras has revolutionised astronomical imaging for the amateur and professional astronomer. The quality, range and power of equipment available to the amateur imager today is mind blowing. Unlike consumer cameras, the cost of dedicated cooled CCD cameras has remained high - they are not mass produced devices so will probably remain expensive.

These cameras from specialist manufacturers range form around £1500 to £10,000 and more. The exception has been Starlight Xpress with cameras from £500, although with physically small chips at the lower prices. Their purchase is therefore a serious decision and with the advent of cheap digital SLRs one to be taken only when the imaging bug bites deep! They are however, unmatched if the target is faint deep-sky objects where their very high quantum efficiency makes them the only serious option.

Software

I mentioned elsewhere that you would spend more time processing than imaging. In Britain that is not difficult but it is true generally. There are several software packages available from freeware to expensive-ware! I use both freeware (IRIS) and Maxim.

Iris

For starters I would recommend IRIS. It is written by Chritian Buil who invented amateur CCD imaging. It is difficult to learn and requires much reading but it does virtually everything. It is constantly developing and if it doesn't do something today I bet it will tomorrow! It has recently been expanded to cover DSLRs and solar imaging!

The Bubble Nebula

NGC5907

Probably the most important factor in getting the best out of our camera is maximizing the “signal-to-noise” ratio, SNR.  It is frequently thought, particularly by those new to CCDs, that because they are more sensitive than film then only short exposures are needed. However, whilst it is true that an exposure of just a few seconds will produce some results and reveal the target object, there is a world of difference between such an image and one that has maximized the SNR. The former will be heavily speckled and gritty, the latter smooth and with a wealth of subtle detail. The reason is of course that all important signal-to-noise ratio.

The signal part of SNR is the easiest to understand and is simply the number of photons recorded by the photosite or pixel. Noise is not quite as easy to grasp. Here something called “uncertainty” rears its head. Detecting photons has an inevitable randomness – repeating the identical observation will not produce exactly the same numbers. This unpredictability, which can never be totally removed from a signal, is called noise. Note this subtle definition. An unwanted signal that can be removed is not noise. Dark current is not therefore noise but the random element embedded in it is! This is a common misconception, which you will often see repeated. Now the good news. If we increase the signal, by whatever means such as a longer single exposure or multiple exposures, then the signal increases faster than the noise. We can fight back.

You don't have to understand the maths involved, just the consequences of each source of noise. So here is the simplified equation for SNR:

This assumes we have calibrated our images. By observing the terms in the nominator and denominator we can make some geralisations:

1. More signal is better so shoot for longer and/or more sub-exposures. Or buy a bigger telescope. Or a camera with bigger pixels. Binning is an alternative to actually having a camera with bigger pixels.

2. Dark skies are better so if you are sub-urban located either travel to a dark site or use light pollution filters or go narrowband.

3. Cool the camera or shoot on cold nights.

4. Choose a camera with low read noise. This one of the reasons Canon DSLRs are so good.

The most common question I get asked is how long should sub-exposures be. Putting real numbers in the above equation for your telescope, location and camera will give the answer but real numbers are not easy to determine. However, we can make some simplifications. The sub-exposures need to be long enough to render the Rn term (remember it is squared) insignificant compared to the signal. For my set-up that equates to 10 minutes sub-exposures with a light-pollution filter and 15 minutes if narrowband. Longer would be better for fainter h-alpha objects but 15 mins is a fairly practical limit.

Note on pixel size and binning: It has been stated elsewhere that the benefit of binning reduces with longer sub-exposures. Binning 2x2 always increases the SNR per pixel (new bigger pixel compared to original size) by approximately 2 times (see this link). That full resolution comes at a price. So always maximise pixel size commensurate with your site resolution.