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Orion Starshoot II

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This Orion StarShoot Deep-Space Color Imager II sets a new standard in affordable, high-technology CCD color imaging for amateur astronomers. The StarShoot Deep Space Imager II is an easy-to-use high-performance single-shot color electronic camera that allows every astronomer – including you – to shoot and process stunning deep sky images of galaxies, nebulas, star clusters, and planets their first night out. And you can do it with a minimum of fuss and at a fraction the cost of conventional big-name CCD cameras.

With the single-shot color StarShoot, every image is a full-color image. There’s no need to shoot separate exposures through multiple filters to get a single color image, as you must with some competing cameras. 

The StarShoot has an image-enhancing feature that similarly-priced competing CCD cameras do not offer – built-in thermoelectric cooling (TEC) that lets you take uninterrupted exposures up to 100 minutes long (almost twice the length of those competitive uncooled cameras). Cooling a CCD chip greatly reduces the heat-generated electronic noise that adversely affects image quality (especially in warm weather). The highly efficient TEC in the StarShoot is powered by only two D-cell flashlight batteries (not supplied).

The Orion Star Shoot includes software customized from the leading CCD imaging utility on the market (MaxIm DL). The MaxIm DL Essentials Edition software that you get with the Star Shoot provides real-time focusing assistance, easy image capture and stacking, and powerful image processing tools. It now includes even more image-processing features, as well as batch processing and multiple-camera support. The software works with Windows 98, 2000, ME, and XP. It even works with Windows Vista, something competitive cameras cannot yet do. Why wait for an uncooled competitive camera to update its software to work with the latest Windows program? The Orion StarShoot Deep Space Imager II works with Vista now!

The StarShoot II works with any telescope and also can be used as an autoguider for long-exposure astrophotography. A USB cable is supplied to connect your imager to your PC or laptop, so you can display your images on your computer screen and store them to print out later and display. Power for the camera itself is supplied by your computer via the included USB cable, but the thermoelectric cooler needs a separate external 3VDC battery-pack power supply. Some computers have USB ports that are known to not meet the USB specification for the output voltage. These computers may not be able to run the StarShoot II without the use of an external powered hub. The vast majority of computers, however, meet the proper USB specification, and should have no problems running the StarShoot II off the regular USB power supplied by your computer.

Features of the Camera
 Imaging sensor: High sensitivity/high dynamic range Sony ExView HAD (Hole Accumulation Diode) 429AKL interline color CCD sensor. Sensitivity and dynamic range are higher than the previous StarShoot Deep Space Imager and are comparable to imagers costing well over $1000. Increased sensitivity reduces the exposure times needed to record faint objects. The wider dynamic range lets the camera record fainter objects without having bright stars in the field saturate the chip. The brightness range between the brightest and faintest objects in the image is correspondingly greater, showing more and fainter objects.

 One-pass imaging: Color images do not require multiple exposures through color filters as more expensive CCD cameras do.
 
 Resolution : 752 pixels wide x 582 pixels high (437,664 total pixels). Each pixel measures 8.6 microns wide x 8.3 microns high.
 
 Analog to digital conversion: Full 16-bit A/D conversion for greater image depth and contrast. 2x oversampling increases the signal-to-noise ratio.
 
 Exposure times: From 1/1000th of a second to 100 minutes. This allows you to record images of bright lunar and planetary features as well as faint deep sky nebulas and galaxies that the unaided eye could never perceive, all in full color.
 
 Thermoelectric cooling: Built-in thermoelectric cooler (TEC) to reduce electronic noise in the image and increase exposure times without a build-up of image-degrading noise. The very efficient TEC cools the camera to 36° Fahrenheit below the ambient temperature and is powered by two D-cell flashlight batteries that fit into the supplied battery pack. The battery pack will typically run the TEC for about 20 hours of continuous operation. If you plan on multiple nights of summertime imaging (while on vacation, for example), a useful addition might be an optional external power source (such as a Celestron 12VDC rechargeable Power Tank battery, which has a 3VDC output tap that will duplicate the 3V output of the two D-cell batteries in the standard battery pack, in addition to its normal 12VDC output for operating your telescope). The camera also can be used without thermoelectric cooling, which is often unneeded when imaging in very cold weather (around or below freezing).
 
 USB 2.0: The StarShoot uses a fast USB 2.0 high speed connection to your computer. This allows fast data transfer for lunar and planetary imaging that lets you see your images almost as soon as you take them, making focusing and composing quick and easy. The StarShoot is also backward compatible with USB 1.1.
 
 IR filter: To become familiar with the camera and how to use it, Orion recommends that you take your first images during the day, when it is easier to read the instruction manual. A removable IR (infrared) filter is supplied that improves the contrast during daytime imaging. The filter is generally left in place during nighttime imaging, except for specific types of astronomical imaging. For example, it is recommended that this filter be removed from the camera when imaging red nebulas that radiate strongly in H-alpha.
 
 Connection to the telescope: The StarShoot has a 1.25" nosepiece that allows you to use it with any telescope having a 1.25" focuser. A supplied parfocalizing ring lets you focus the StarShoot at the same point as a favorite eyepiece in the 10mm focal length range. With the previously parfocalized eyepiece in your scope, center in the eyepiece the object you want to take a picture of and focus. Then, simply replace the eyepiece with the StarShoot, and shoot. The nosepiece can also be unthreaded to reveal standard 42mm female T-threads in the front plate of the camera, which allow you to thread the camera onto any standard camera adapter, tele-extender, off-axis guider, etc.
 
 Power requirements: No batteries or power supplies are required for imaging. Just plug the StarShoot’s USB cable into your laptop or PC and you are ready to image or autoguide. Your computer provides the camera’s power. No other power supply is needed for the camera. Two D-cell batteries or an external power supply is needed to power the thermoelectric cooler.
 
 Dimensions: The compact made-in-the-USA StarShoot measures only 4" in diameter x 1.65" deep and weighs a mere 14 ounces, so balancing your telescope with the camera on will not require additional counterweights.
  
 Included components: You get the MaxIm DL Essentials software on a CD-ROM; the StarShoot Deep Space Imaging Camera II; an IR filter; a USB Cable; a battery pack that holds two D-cell flashlight batteries (batteries not supplied) to power the TEC; a parfocal ring, and an installation and operating instructions manual.
 
 Computer requirements: The minimum computer configuration is a Pentium or higher computer; 64 MB of RAM minimum; 67 MB of available hard-drive space for program installation (in addition, a 100 MB swap file is recommended); CD-ROM drive; Windows 2000/XP/Vista; 800x600 16-bit color video display (1024x768 or higher is recommended); mouse; and a USB 1.1 port (USB 2.0 is recommended).

The StarShoot Deep-Space CCD Color Imaging Camera II comes with MaxIm DL Essentials Edition image capture and processing software. MaxIm DL has long been known as the leading software program for CCD imaging. The MaxIm DL Essentials program displays the target object on your PC screen; automatically captures multiple exposures; automatically aligns and stacks a series of images, using state-of-the-art techniques, to provide an extremely low noise, highly detailed single composite color image; provides easy, real-time focusing assistance; allows the use of the StarShoot as a high-precision autoguider for a larger CCD camera; and more. It includes the tools to adjust color saturation and balance, eliminating the need to use Photoshop or other aftermarket tools to accomplish this pre-publication step.

No matter how you look at it – one-shot color image capability, pixel count, improved sensitivity; built-in thermoelectric cooling, advanced MaxIm DL Essentials software – the Orion StarShoot Deep Space II CCD camera is one of the best-equipped and easiest-to-use CCD cameras available.

Single-Shot Color
Individual pixels in CCD cameras record only light and dark, black and white. They don’t see color. To produce a color image requires taking three separate monochrome (black and white) images though individual red, green, and blue filters. These three black and white images, each representing a single color of light (red, green, or blue), are then combined in your computer to produce the final full-color image.

Most CCD cameras take the three filtered images sequentially and store them in the computer for later processing, with the operator changing color filters between each exposure. However, several CCD manufacturers offer single-shot color cameras that record all three color images at the same time, in a single exposure. These cameras are also available in conventional monochrome versions. The single-shot color CCD cameras are essentially identical to their monochrome counterparts with the exception of the addition of a permanent color filter matrix over the pixels that lets them take all three color images simultaneously, as explained below.



The images in the box above show the basic structure of the pixels on a Kodak CCD detector, such as used on high-end SBIG and Finger Lakes Instrumentation single-shot color cameras. The top row shows a monochrome detector, the bottom row shows a single-shot color detector. The center image in each row is an actual photograph of the surface of the CCD showing a small section of the pixel array. The drawings at the right depict a side view of an individual pixel.

As you can see from the bottom row of images, the CCD structure for the single-shot color version is the same as the monochrome version except for the red, green, and blue pattern of filters over the pixels. The arrangement of colored filters over the pixels in a single-shot color camera is a repeating square of RGGB known as a Bayer pattern. This repeating pattern of RGGB pixels allows the separate red, green and blue data to be collected in a single monochrome exposure and electronically separated into the three monochrome images your computer needs to reconstruct a full-color image. Every fourth pixel sees red, every fourth pixel sees blue and every other pixel sees green. Special software extrapolates the RGB color data for each individual pixel in the frame from the color information in the adjacent colored pixels.

Many of the more economical cameras from Celestron, Meade, and Orion use Sony CCD detectors primarily designed for general use in camcorders and other consumer electronics, rather than the more-specialized detectors from Kodak. The Sony detectors use a color filter matrix of yellow, cyan, magenta, and green filters in a repeating sequence to generate the full color spectrum using sophisticated addition and subtraction algorithms to generate the desired RBG signal. The Sony filter matrix pattern is shown below.



What are the differences between taking three separate exposures versus one? Primarily it is a trade-off between greater complexity, sensitivity, and flexibility at a higher cost for the monochrome camera versus the single-shot color camera’s simplicity, ease of use, and lower overall cost for color imaging. A single-shot color camera needs only one image to do the job of the three needed by a monochrome camera/color filter wheel system. While this is simpler and less time-consuming, it results in a difference in the amount and quality of data recorded by each camera. The final image from a single-shot color camera has the same number of total pixels as a color image created by a monochrome camera and external filters, but it is created from less original data than the three discrete images of a monochrome camera. In addition, only one-third of the color information for each pixel is unique to that pixel and measured directly. The other two color values are approximations, derived from adjacent pixels.

In the case of a monochrome camera, the external color filters can be designed specifically for astronomical use, with high light transmission, precisely tailored response curves, and with better control of the color balance between the emission line and continuum light for different deep space objects. There is no way to tailor the sensitivity and spectral response of each color filter in the matrix to match the emissions of the object you are imaging, or to use special purpose narrowband filters, such as Oxygen III, SII ionized sulfur, H-alpha, etc. The matrix filters are general purpose red, green, and blue filters only.

As far as sensitivity is concerned, the monochrome camera is somewhat more sensitive due mainly to the nature of the external filters compared to the micro-filters placed over each pixel in the single-shot color camera. The monochrome camera requires more work to take a tri-color image, however, and the addition of the required filters and color filter wheel makes it more expensive.

The effective QE (quantum efficiency) of the monochrome camera with external filters is slightly higher than the single-shot color camera based on the filter transmission characteristics. But remember, the monochrome camera must take three frames versus the single-shot color camera's single frame. So for a proper comparison, a monochrome camera taking a 20 minute image through each of the three filters should be compared to a single-shot color camera taking a single 60 minute image. In this case, the single-shot color camera compares very well to its monochrome counterpart. Moreover, self-guiding the single-shot color camera is easier due to the fact that the separate built-in guider detector is never covered by a filter which can affect the tracking performance of the guider. Where a monochrome camera shines is in taking a grayscale image, or in taking narrow band monochrome or tri-color images of emission line objects. But for simple color images, single-shot color cameras are very capable.

Interline CCD
An interline-transfer CCD detector has a parallel register consisting of columns of sensors (photosites or pixels) separated by opaque strips (interline masks). The photons of the image accumulate in the exposed sensor area of the CCD detector.

Unlike conventional CCD cameras, which use a mechanical shutter to keep light from falling on the detector while the accumulated charge is being read out sequentially from the detector to your computer, the interline detector uses an electronic “shutter.” During CCD readout the entire image is first electronically shifted from the sensor columns into shift register columns hidden under the interline masks between each row of pixels. All of the columns shift simultaneously from sensors to shift registers, rather than transferring sequentially, as with a conventional CCD. Readout then proceeds from the hidden shift register columns sequentially to your computer in normal CCD fashion while the now-empty sensor areas start to accumulate more photons.

Since the signal is transferred in microseconds, electronic pixel smearing during download (from photons continuing to be recorded while the pixel is being read) is undetectable for typical exposures. The rapid transfer also allows the interline CCD to act as an electronic shutter to permit very short, very accurate exposures for lunar and planetary imaging.

A drawback to interline-transfer CCDs has been their relatively poor sensitivity to photons, since a large portion of each pixel is covered by the opaque interline mask. Kodak interline CCDs use a microlens assembly over the pixel array to direct the light from a larger area down to each photosite to focus more of the incoming light on the individual pixels.