Player One Astronomy Zeus 455M PRO USB3.0 (IMX455) Mono Cooled Camera

Player One Astronomy Zeus 455M PRO USB3.0 (IMX455) Mono Cooled Camera

Product features:

ZEUS 455M Pro cooled camera is developed by Player One Astronomy, it’s design for advanced DSO imaging. it adopts Sony Industrial grade IMX455ALK-K full-frame format monochrome sensor. The 3.76um pixel size accommodates a well depth of 71.6Ke with a total of 61MP  (the resolution is 9576*6388), and the diagonal is 44.3mm.

Rear Adjustment 4 Point Sensor Tilt Plate

When taking deepsky objects, using sensor tilt plate can get a much smaller field curvature of the telescope. We adopts rear Adjustment and 4 point tilt plate, it has a lot advantages in usage.

4 Point adjustment is easier to know which corner is needed to adjust. The built-in high-density sponge shading pad can block the light from the side slits without any side leakage.

For understand 4 point adjustment method, we made a example for users:

Deep Cooling

Player One cooled camera series use 2 Stage TEC Cooling unit, after improved the structure design to reject the heat back to camera chamber, Zeus Camera Delta-T can reach about 35℃.

512MB DDR3 Cache

As an improvement, DDR3 cache in cooled cameras are increased to 512MB. It helps stabilize and secure data transmission, it effectively avoids frame dropping and greatly reduces readout noise.

With the DDR3 cache, the camera does not have high demands on computing needs any longer, it will still has excellent performance even if it is connected to a USB 2.0 port.

STARVIS Technology

ZEUS 455M Pro cooled camera based on Sony STARVIS technology, it is back-illuminated pixel technology used in CMOS image sensors.

Full-Frame Format

ZEUS 455M Pro cooled camera has full-frame format (36mm*24mm), it is very suitable for professional DSO imaging.

Native 16bit ADC

IMX455 has native 16-bit on-chip ADC. Native 16bit ADC (65536 levels) provide higher sample resolution than 12bit (4096 levels) or 14bit (16384 levels). When we do non-linear transformation, 16bit data can endure very strong transform and also could bring much better light and dark transition, furthermore 16bit can make the color more vivid.

Non-Amp-Glow

ZEUS 455M Pro cooled camera is a Non-Amp-Glow camera too!

300s, gain=0, offset=5, dark frame at -5℃ of ZEUS 455M Pro cooled camera:

Preview of Dark frame: Exposure=300s, gain=0, offset=5, temp=-5℃   STF auto-Stretch in Pixinsight 1.86

Non-Amp-Glow can give us very clean background, much easier to get high quaility images.

Type-C Data port and Power port

Back piece of cooled camera has 2 Type-C data port and 12V DC 5.5×2.1mm power port.

Main data port support USB3.0 protocol, the camera can run 6.5fps under RAW8 mode. Type-C port is easier to plug in when assemble the imaging equipment in night.

When recording images, since the actual writing speed will be affected by the writing speed of the hard disk itself, when the hard disk writing speed is slow, the recording may not reach the theoretical speed. It is recommended that you use a high-quality solid state drive to record data to give full play to the performance of the camera.

The camera has 12V DC5.5*2.1mm port to provide enough power to TEC cooling system. If you don’t need to power up cooling, only need to connect the main Type-C port, the camera will works as a uncooled camera.

Standard Cable Usage

Cooling System and Anti-Dew Heater

In ASCOM window, we provide 3 adjustable parameters: Target temperature, Fan Speed and Anti-Dew power.

Standard Delta-T: 35℃ (±2℃) , when ambient temp 30℃, fan speed 100%, dew heater 10%.

Recommend Delta-T settings: 30℃ below ambient, fan speed 70%, dew heater 10%, power consumption 40- 60%.

The rotation speed of cooling fan is also adjustable, the default value is 70% speed.

Dew problem is the biggest enemy in astro imaging, the camera integrated anti-dew heater in front of the camera. The heat power is adjustable.

Overvoltage and overcurrent protection mechanism

Player One cameras produced by us ensures the safety of your camera and other equipment through overvoltage and overcurrent protection mechanisms.

Performance

Dual Sampling Mode

ZEUS series has dual sampling mode. Normal mode and Low Noise mode, they has different advantages in imaging.

1. Normal mode has faster FPS, it is more suitable for planetary imaging.

2. Low Noise mode (LRN) mode has lower readout noise and higher dynamic range. it is more suitable for DSO imaging.

At gain=0, the camera has 14.2 stops dynamic range and 71.6Ke full well capacity, readout noise is 4.2e.

HCG open at gain=125, the camera has 13.5 stops dynamic range and 16.7Ke full well, readout noise drop to only 1.5e.

Frame rate

ZEUS 455M Pro cooled camera can run 6.5FPS under RAW8 mode, 3.2FPS under RAW16 mode.

Extended Full well

ZEUS 455M Pro cooled camera has 71.6Ke full well.