Excelsis Ratings/Reviews - Votes:SAC7 Series Cooled Color CCD Video Cameras

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SAC7 Series Cooled Color CCD Video Cameras

A good camera to get your feet wet in CCD imaging. It is basically a modified webcam, and as such, has a small CCD chip - so it is best used with fast telescopes or SCT's with focal reducers.

One big problem with these cameras is that they produce a very strong magenta hue to their images. There is no way to correct for this other than to do severe color adjustments in post-processing. Also, they create very strong vertical lines across the image - much more than the Toucam does. The only real way to correct for the banding is to do a fairly complicated process using flats - not much fun for a "one shot" color CCD.

On the positive side, the peltier device works very well at reducing the hot pixels and thermal noise. Two minute exposures show very little noise. Furthermore, the overall construction of the camera is very well made. The camera has a t-thread on the end, and a removable t-mount is included, allowing various mounting schemes. The included software works quite well, although it is difficult to initially setup the drivers.

Despite the negatives, this is a good camera - especially when you consider the price. If you think you want to try astrophotography, this allows you to "get in the game" without spending a fortune to see if you like it or not.

Overall Rating: 6
Performance:5 Ease of Use:7 Value:9
Weight: 11 (Trustworthy Vote)
Date: 08/04/2003 06:17:35 pm PST
By: TelescopeFan
Link to this vote: https://www.excelsis.com:443/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=279996

Reply Replies: 0

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