Nickel Direct Imaging Camera User's Manual: Detector Characteristics

Detector Characteristics

CCD-2 (aka Dewar#2), is a thinned, Loral, 2048 x 2048 CCD, with 15-micron pixels. Its 0.184 arcsec/pixel plate scale gives a field of view of about 6.3 x 6.3 arcminutes. CCD-2 is currently the only detector available for direct imaging on the Nickel telescope. See CCD-2 specifications for QE and other characteristics.

Readnoise and gain (measured on telescope by E.G. Dec 23, 2013) for each binning and readout mode is listed below.

Binning Readout
Speed Gain
(e-/DN) Readnoise
(e-) Readout Time
(m:ss) Approx. Bias
(DN)

x1 slow 1.8 8.9 1:16 1000

x1 fast 2.0 16.8 0:17 1000

x2 slow 1.8 10.7 0:21 1000

x2 fast 1.9 12.4 0:05 1000

x4 slow 1.9 13.3 0:06 1000

x4 fast 1.9 15.3 0:02 1000

Binning	Readout Speed	Gain (e-/DN)	Readnoise (e-)	Readout Time (m:ss)	Approx. Bias (DN)
x1	slow	1.8	8.9	1:16	1000
x1	fast	2.0	16.8	0:17	1000
x2	slow	1.8	10.7	0:21	1000
x2	fast	1.9	12.4	0:05	1000
x4	slow	1.9	13.3	0:06	1000
x4	fast	1.9	15.3	0:02	1000

The CCD full well depth is 118,000 e-. The chip is linear in response up to 60,000 DN in bin x2 fast mode (measured by E.G. April 2006). Other readout modes may become non-linear at lower count levels, thus keeping peak levels below 50K DN is recommended for all readout modes.

The CCD is read out using a single amplifier and the 32 column overscan region occupies the far right (highest numbered) columns.

Support Astronomers (sa@ucolick.org)

Last modified: Mon Dec 23 14:58:16 PST 2013

User's Guide to the Nickel Direct Imaging Camera

Table of Contents

Detector Characteristics