High resolution images

Nicola is in the process of implementing a prototype uncooled camera, the SC715C based on the IMX715 sensor which has tiny pixels of 1.45 μm x 1.45 μm size. This camera is suited to high resolution imaging of the Moon, Sun and planets but is not really suitable for deep sky imaging except for the very bright DSOs.

The prototype was tested with AstroDMx Capture and an Ekinox 80mm ED, F=440mm refractor with a Skywatcher Autofocuser and an IR/UV cut filter for lunar imaging and Deep Sky imaging only with the bright DSO, the Orion nebula.

Click on an image to get a closer view

Ekinox 80mm ED f/5.5 refractor

To achieve optimum focus AstroDMx Capture sent the scope with plate solving, to the star Deneb which was brought to focus using a Bahtinov mask and using a 4tronix Focus RF Autofocuser controller to remotely control the autofocuser.

AstroDMx Capture was used to capture two overlapping 1500 frame 16bit RAW SER files of the 59% waxing Moon

The best 60% of the frames in each of the two SER files were debayered and stacked in Autostakkert!4. The two resulting images were stitched together in Microsoft ICE, wavelet sharpened in waveSharp and post processed in Gimp 2.10 and ACDSee.

High resolution image of the 59% waxing Moon

Although the prototype camera is not really suited to deep sky imaging, a bright DSO was used for test purposes. 100 x 10s exposures of the mag 4.0 Orion nebula were captured along with Flats and Darks.The data were debayered, calibrated and stacked in PixInsight with SPCC and StarXT and further processed in Siril, Gimp 2.10, GraXpert and Seti Astro Suite Cosmic Clarity.

The final Orion nebula image oriented in a more familiar way

The trapezium stars are very well resolved. 

It will be interesting to test this camera further.

Steve Wainwright and Nicola Mackin