Curtis Computer Acquisition Camera CCDS - Manual

CCDS Acquisition Camera
User’s Manual
J. Marshall
05 August 2005
Background:
The CCDS acquisition (slitviewer) camera was replaced in August 2005. This modern
CCD camera is much more sensitive than the old system! It should also be easier to use.
The new acquisition camera is a SBIG ST-9 CCD camera. The system specifications are
listed on the next page. This camera is controlled with SBIG’s control software,
CCDOps. This software runs on a pc running Windows XP.
The old camera on the CCDS has been replaced, along with some of its infrastructure, by
the much smaller ST-9 camera. The old video monitor has been replaced with a new pc
monitor, keyboard, and mouse. The control pc lives in the computer room (on the small
red rack) and is clearly marked.
This upgrade should be in all respects an improvement to the functionality of CCDS, and
should not represent much of a change of usage for the observer. In particular, all of the
existing optics were retained in this upgrade, the only hardware that was replaced was in
fact the camera itself.
Please note that one important change with this upgrade is that the field-of-view of the
acquisition camera is no longer centered on the CCDS camera. In particular, to center an
object on the CCDS detector, the object must be placed near the South (right-hand) side
of the acquisition camera field-of-view.
Previously it was a struggle to acquire targets as bright as 17 th magnitude; it is now easy
to obtain targets down to 20th magnitude in 5 seconds!