A new camera for the Hyperstar III

Well I don’t think there is going to be much let up in the rain for a good few months now – I have just received a new camera for the Hyperstar III.  For quite a while now I have used the faithful Starlight Xpress M25C one-shot colour CCD on the HSIII – 6-Megapixels and 2.85 arc seconds per pixel sampling – it has performed flawlessly and provided some superb images.  BUT – there’s always developmental improvements at Starlight Xpress and as I now have quite a bit of experience using the new M26C cameras on the mini-WASP array, it became clear that this should be the new camera for the HSIII.  So I’ve leapt up from 6-Megapixels to 10-Megapixels and my sampling has gone up from 2.85 arc seconds per pixel to 2.1 arc seconds per pixel.  The Hyperstar III and the M26C are going to be a formidable combination.  Last night I managed to get all the software working with the new camera and the next job is to focus train the new system using Starizona’s Microfocuser system and FocusMax.  With the system focus trained for the new camera it’s then a matter of flattening and collimating the camera using CCDInspector (and FocusMax) – and then I’ll be all set for imaging again.  Really looking forward to putting the new combo through its paces 🙂  Guess I also now need to create a new Category for this web site – Hyperstar III and M26C CCD images.

 

This entry was posted in Equipment, News. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *