Starlight Xpress SXVR-H674C - Manual (Page 2)

Handbook for the SXVR-H674C Issue 1 March 2012
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optional integrated dual serial ports for filter wheel and telescope control. It also
includes a CCD temperature monitoring circuit that provides regulated set-point
cooling of the chip, adjustable chip alignment and a very compact overall size.
The SXVR-H674C uses a Sony ICX674ALG ‘EXview’ progressive scan CCD, with
1940 x 1460 x 4.54uM pixels in a 8.8 x 6.63mm active area. This EXview device has
an excellent quantum efficiency, with a broad spectral response peaking at around
77% in yellow light, and an extremely low dark current, well below that of any
comparable CCD currently available. While this device also has an excellent blue
light sensitivity, it has a strong infra-red response, which makes it ideal for all aspects
of both planetary and deep-sky imaging, especially with an H-alpha filter. The H-
alpha QE is about 65%, considerably better than other interline chips and even greater
than the popular KAF8300 CCD.
The full-frame download time is approximately 4 seconds and a binned 4x4 download
takes only 0.5 seconds, so finding and centring are very quick and easy in this mode.
Please take a few minutes to study the contents of this manual, which will help you to
get the camera into operation quickly and without problems. I am sure that you want
to see some results as soon as possible, so please move on to the ‘Quick Start’ section,
which follows. A more detailed description of imaging techniques will be found in a
later part of this manual.
‘Quick Starting’ your SXVR-H674C system
In the shipping container you will find the following items:
1) The SXVR-H674C camera head.
2) A universal AC power supply module.
3) A USB camera cable.
4) An adaptor for 1.25” drawtubes, with a 1.25” filter thread.
5) An adaptor for 2” drawtubes and M42 Pentax thread lenses.
6) A guider output to guider port lead.
7) A disk with the SXVR-H674C control software and this manual.
Optional extra items include:
1) A serial port adaptor and cable.
2) An add-on guide camera head.
You will also need a PC computer with Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 installed.
This machine must have at least one USB 2.0 port available and at least 256 Mbytes
of memory. If you intend to view the finished images on its screen, then you will also
need a graphics card capable of displaying an image with a minimum of 1024 x 768
pixels and 24 bit colour. A medium specification Pentium with between 1GHz and
4GHz processor speed is ideal, but I recommend avoiding some of the lower
specification ‘Netbook’ computers, as they can’t really handle the fast data stream
from the camera. Please note that USB 2.0 operates at a very high speed and cannot
operate over very long cables. Five metres of good quality cable is the maximum