Optimum light gathering efficiency is often critical and this can normally be achieved more easily with larger area CCDs that ones that have large pixels. The An tares family of controllers is often used unless fast read-out is needed as in tomographic applications when many images need to be captured in rapid succession. Usually a thermoelectric head is satisfactory. A separate application note on X-ray imaging is available. Long exposures usually call for liquid nitrogen systems, and thinned large area CCDs are the usual choice, with the emphasis on the lowest read-out noise for spectroscopy.
Customers usually specify the An tares family of controllers.
Astronomical acquisition, guiding and wavefront sensing Standard MPP small area CCDs, such as the EEV CCD39 in a thermo electric cooler, are well suited for this application. The An tares controllers allow both acquisition and fast guiding to be handled by the same CCD system. The pages on this Web Site are Copyright of PixCellent Imaging Ltd., Cambridge, England. 12 April, 1999.