Farpoint - Opticstar DS-142M ICE w/ Sony ICX205AL 1.4 MP Monochrome CCD, TEC Cooling

• Sony ICX205AK 1.4 Megapixel 1/2" CCD


• Colour CCD: 1434 x 1050 pixels


• Pixel size 4.65µm x 4.65µm


• Quantum Efficiency (mono version): 42%


• Noise reduction electronics


• Gain functionality in hardware


• Preview mode @ 1434x1050: 2.5fps


• Raw 16-bit image transfer @ 1434x1050: 0.5 second approximately


• Colour Binning: 1x1, 2x2, 4x4


• Data output: 16-bit or 8-bit raw


• Exposure time: 20ms to over 1 hour


• Robust all metal case


• Sealed sensor and electronics


• Peltier cooled with fan assist,up to 30°C below ambient


• USB 2.0 high-speed interface


• Focusing preview mode


• 2.5 meters in-situ USB cable


• High quality regulated PSU


• Full Nebulosity software included for camera control and image processing


• Bundled plug-ins: AstroArt & MaxIm DL


• Windows 2000/XP/Vista

The Opticstar hand-selected hi-grade A+ sensor installed in this camera is noted for its uniform surface response and low noise required for low light applications

The package contains the following:

• Opticstar DS-142C ICE 1.4 mega-pixel colour CCD camera.


• C/CS to 1.25" telescope adapter threaded for filters.


• C/CS to T thread adapter for T thread lens.


• 2.5 metres in-situ USB cable.


• High quality regulated PSU. 3A; AC:100-240V for Europe, USA etc; DC:3.3V.


• Aluminium storage and carry case.


• Software on CD:
  
  
  
  • Nebulosity v1.8.2 software for camera control and image processing.
  
  
  • DS-142C ICE Plug-in for Nebulosity v1.8.x.
  
  
  • DS-142C ICE Plug-in for AstroArt v3/v4.
  
  
  • DS-142C ICE Plug-in for MaxIm DL/CCD.
  
  
  
  


• Set-up guide and user manual.

High Quality Construction

The camera electronics and sensor are housed inside a high quality aluminium body that entirely seals the sensor and on-board electronics from the outside environment. This is important as it protects the camera internals from high humidity and water running down the telescope and into the camera damaging the electronics or sensor, quite common in inadequate camera designs.

The camera relies for fast data transfers on an efficient USB2.0 sub-system specially designed for the DS-142C ICE. The camera is powered via a high quality regulated mains power supply included with the camera and comes with all cables, adapters and software needed to be able to use the camera out of the box.

Specification

Nebulosity Software

Nebulosity is designed to be a powerful, but simple to use camera control and image processing application for Opticstar CCD cameras. Its goal is to suit people ranging from the novice imager who wants to create his or her first images to the advanced imager who wants a convenient, flexible capture application for use in the field. In it, you get a host of purpose-built powerful tools to make the most out of your images (e.g., Digital Development Processing, traditional alignment/stacking (equatorial and alt-az), Drizzle alignment/stacking, Bad Pixel Mapping, real-time tricolour histograms for colour balancing, star tightening via edge detection, adaptive scaling of stacks, Canon CR2/CRW RAW Bayer matrix loading, 32/96-bit accuracy, etc.)

Nebulosity Features

• Simple, but powerful interface
  
  
  
  • All basic controls are present on the main screen. No need to navigate through lots of menus during an imaging session. Nebulosity was designed to be easily operated in the field by someone who actually operates it in an actual field.
  
  
  • By default, all displays are auto-scaled. Any scaling (including inverted) of the data onto the display possible using easy sliders.
  
  
  • Histogram gives a quick view of how much of the valid data range is being used during each capture.
  
  
  • Pixel statistics / area statistics pop-up window.
  
  
  • Zoom button lets you rescale the displayed image quickly.
  
  
  • Measure Distance tool lets you measure the distance (CCD pixels, arc-seconds, or arc-minutes) among up to 3 points.
  
  
  • Can act as a FITS file viewer for Windows (double-click or drag-and-drop).
  
  
  • Can write / run scripts to automate captures.
  
  
  • Unlimited undo/redo (0, 3, or unlimited levels of undo)
  
  
  • Small clock to show local time, UTC, GMST, local sidereal, or Polaris RA.
  
  
  
  


• Capture control.
  
  
  
  • All basic capture parameters present on main screen. Duration of exposure, number of exposures per captured series, delay between captures, name of series, camera gain and camera offset all in one simple panel.
  
  
  • Times may be specified in either seconds or milliseconds.
  
  
  • Quick Preview button captures one frame with current settings and displays it on the screen without saving. Helps in focus, composition, and tuning of capture parameters.
  
  
  • Frame and Focus mode: Loops a quick, binned image to assist in rapid initial focus and framing.
  
  
  • Fine Focus mode: Loops a very quick image around a selected star in full resolution to fine-tune focus.
  
  
  • Capture one-shot colour in RAW CCD format or reconstruct colour on the fly ñ your choice.
  
  
  • Automatic setting of camera offset.
  
  
  • Capture status able to be shown in large red display for easy viewing when away from computer.
  
  
  
  


• Multiple file formats supported
  
  
  
  • Read virtually any FITS file to process images from virtually any camera (RGB colour, black and white, compressed or uncompressed, any bit depth).
  
  
  • Captured data saved in FITS as 16-bits (0-65535) per colour channel, 32-bit floating point per colour channel, or in 15-bits (0-32767) per colour channel.
  
  
  • One-shot colour data captures may be saved in RAW CCD format or as reconstructed full-colour images in an RGB FITS format (Maxim / AstroArt style or ImagesPlus style) or 3 separate FITS files (the latter only for capture and subsequent use in other programs).
  
  
  • Captured data saved in either lossless compressed FITS according to the FITS standard or uncompressed FITS.
  
  
  • These same save formats available for any loaded image, making Nebulosity serve to convert between many FITS formats (just select your output format using the settings on the Preferences menu).
  
  
  • Save current displayed image in BMP or JPG format (24-bit colour) as displayed. o Save current image in 16 bit/colour (48-bit colour) uncompressed TIFF, compressed TIFF, or PNG (compressed) format.
  
  
  • Load Canon CR2 format RAW (Rebel XT, 20, 20Da, 5D, etc) and Canon CRW format RAW as pure Bayer-matrix RAW data.
  
  
  • Load 8/24 bit PNG, TIFF, JPG, and BMP (scaled to 16/48-bit) or 16/48-bit PNG and TIFF.
  
  
  • Batch convert from FITS to 16/48-bit PNG or compressed TIFF.
  
  
  • Batch convert from CR2, CRW, PNG, TIFF, JPG, and BMP to FITS.
  
  
  
  


• Camera support.
  
  
  
  • Meade DSI, DSI Pro, DSI-II, and DSI-II Pro (Windows and OS X).
  
  
  • Orion StarShoot.
  
  
  • Artemis / Atik 16 (all varieties, including HR).
  
  
  • SAC10.
  
  
  • SAC7 / ìSCî long-exposure modified webcams / Atik 1&2 via the parallel port or via the ShoeString LXUSB adapter for all-USB (no parallel port) long-exposure imaging.
  
  
  • Canon DIGIC II DSLRs (Windows and OS X): EOS 1D/1Ds Mk II/Mk IIN, 1Ds Mk II, 20D/20Da, 350D / Rebel XT, 5D, 30D, 400D / Rebel XTi). Captures are to FITS files with pure Bayer-matrix data extracted on the fly (or ultra-fast colour JPEGs - your choice). Bulb-mode exposures via ShoeString DSUSB adapter, serial port adapters, or parallel port adapters (parallel only available on Windows).
  
  
  • Simulated camera.
  
  
  • Virtually any camera supported for image processing - above supported for capture as well.
  
  
  
  


• Internal calculations.
  
  
  
  • All data stored internally in 32-bit floating point per colour channel. For B&W or RAW images, this equates to 32-bits and for colour images, this equates to 96-bits in all math routines. You will never have overflow (saturation) or overflow or quantization issues as a result.
  
  
  • Critical math routines computed in double-precision (64-bit per channel) floating point.
  
  
  • Since all captures even from one-shot colour cameras can be done in B&W mode (RAW CCD data) and since memory for colour images is only allocated when viewing in colour, memory requirements can be reduced by capturing one-shot colour data in RAW format for machines with less RAM.
  
  
  • All calculations done using pointer arithmetic for high-speed operation.
  
  
  
  


• Image processing.
  
  
  
  • Dark / flat / and bias frame pre-processing of B&W, RAW one-shot colour, and RGB one-shot colour sets of images.
  
  
  • Auto-scaling of dark frames to compensate for differences in exposure time or temperature.
  
  
  • Create and apply Bad Pixel Maps as an alternative way of removing hot pixels.
  
  
  • Versatile Levels / Power Stretch tool lets you apply not only simple linear stretching of your images, but non-linear stretches as well. Pre- and post- stretch histograms interactively displayed and an ROI preview is available.
  
  
  • Digital Development Processing (DDP). A technique to make CCD images look more like film images by using a hyperbolic scaling of the data. Here, the basic technique is enhanced to allow easy darkening of the background at the same time.
  
  
  • Star Tightening. A technique to sharpen stars using an edge-detection algorithm (does not leave the artifacts found).
  
  
  • Grade a series of images to determine the sharpest / best of the set.
  
  
  • Line filter reconstruction for one-shot cameras. Optimized reconstruction of RAW images taken using line filters. General mode plus modes optimized for H-alpha and O-III/H-beta on CMYG arrays.
  
  
  • Align and stack a series of images using translation (for equatorially mounted telescopes) or translation + rotation (alt-az or equatorial) or translation + rotation + scaling. Unequal image sizes supported and output either the stack or the individual aligned frames.
  
  
  • Drizzle alignment / stacking and resolution enhancement for either equatorial or alt-az (translation + rotation).
  
  
  • Colours in Motion: Simultaneous over-sampling alignment/stacking and De-Bayer of one-shot colour images to significantly decrease colour error and increase resolution. For one-shot colour imagers, this improves resolution and reduces colour error.
  
  
  • Adaptive scaling of combined data (stacks) to use full 16-bit range (gives you the best features of adding and averaging frames).
  
  
  • Average a series of images without alignment (e.g., for combining darks, flats, bias frames, etc.)
  
  
  • Tools to set the minimum of an image to zero (useful if a computation has taken it above 65535 and you wish to save the image) and to rescale the intensity of an image (multiply each pixel by a constant.)
  
  
  • Colour balance adjust (offset and scaling) with real-time 3-colour histograms for easy, accurate balancing. Luminance extraction provided as well. o De-mosaic a RAW one-shot colour image for any of the supported cameras. Both interactive and batch-mode supported.
  
  
  • Automatic demosaic of Canon CR2 files with control over white balance for stock and IR-filter modified cameras.
  
  
  • Manual De-mosaic of RAW one-shot colour images from RGB or CMYG cameras. Full control over pixel aspect ratio and over colour balancing / mixing during conversion.
  
  
  • 2x2 binning of images: addition, averaging, or adaptive. o Blurring of images (3-levels).
  
  
  • Crop tool.
  
  
  • Rotation and mirroring of images.
  
  
  • Pixel squaring.
  
  
  
  

Our product warrantee on all of our products except Bahtinov Focus masks, Dri-shields, Astro Armour cases and Flex dew shields have a " Limited Warranty" against defects in materials or workmanship for one year from date of purchase non-transferable. The Focus Masks, Dri-shields, Astro-armour cases and Flex dew shields all have a " Life Time" warranty against any defects on materials and workmanship, normal wear and tear only! If a life time warantee product needs to be replaced user must return product to you directly to include his/her name, address and email address in order for us to send a replacement! Any misuse, abuse or damage caused by individual/s will void all warrantee's on all products! Full replacement value will only be accepted on Life Time warranty products with original date and sales receipt, non-transferable, all shipping cost paid will be paid by Farpoint! All of our Laser products (collimators) come with a lifetime alignment guarantee which is non-transferable, customer pays for initial shipping only, no extra  cost for us to return the product!