With the summer months ahead, few things are more enticing than the peacefulness of lying on the fresh grass, looking up, contemplating the night sky. One of the elements that I often marvel at is our closest neighbor; the moon, which even to the naked eye, is striking. Perhaps you’re tempted to grab a pair of binoculars or a telescope, to explore the moon’s beauty in closer detail, or discover other distant elements. Suddenly, you have a new found hobby as an amateur astronomer and now; here you are, shopping for a digital camera to add to your equipment check list.
What an exciting time for astrophotographers. New technologies such as the highly anticipated USB 3.0 interface are making life for the amateur astronomer that much easier. The introduction of USB 3.0, combined with image sensors that offer high resolution, incredible speed and a large optical format, are leading a small revolution in astrophotography. In past, this combination of speed and resolution meant that the data transfer rate generated by these products far exceeded the rate of consumer friendly technologies. This resulted in the purchase of specialized machine vision data interfaces such as CameraLink, which quickly processed large amounts of data. Although an easy solution for professional astronomers working from their extensive laboratories, the complexities of CameraLink coupled with the lack of portability presented an unsolvable challenge to the amateur user. USB 3.0 addresses this problem by offering data rates of up to 5 GBPS, in an easy-to-use data interface that is common to most new computers and portable laptops. Data transfer is now a simple process.
Amateur astronomers can now benefit from advanced technologies that until recently were exclusive to industry professionals, including passive heat dissipation and high precision electronic components. These innovations, traditionally available in scientific cameras or a very small number of astronomy models, appeal to both professional scientists and amateur astronomers by offering lower imaging noise and allowing for longer exposure of faint celestial objects. The same can be said of the fast and dependable data transfer, which can only be achieved with dedicated frame memory and advanced buffer management circuitry. This ensures that maximum frame rates can be reached without the loss of images. Imaging at a high frame rate is a useful tool in managing the distortion introduced by the earth’s atmosphere. The increased sensitivity in the Near-Infrared (NIR) band, found in some specialized industrial imaging sensors, allows enhanced details that are not visible to the naked eye.
Many of our astronomy cameras have been specifically designed with both amateur and professional imagers in mind. To see the benefits of these advanced technologies first hand, I am sharing some of the amazing astronomy images collected over the years with our SKYnyx, industrial and INFINITY cameras, including; our beautiful moon.
