Curtis Computer CCDS instruction

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 17th magnitude; it is now easy to obtain targets down to 20th magnitude in 5 seconds!