CCD and Telescope Introduction Lab Report

CCD and Telescope Introduction

Lab Report

September 23, 2015

Abstract

On the night of the 23^rd of September performed a lab dealing with CCD cameras and an introduction to setting up and dismounting the telescopes that will be used at Baker observatory.  The setting up and dismounting of the telescope went fairly smoothly although learning how to zoom the telescope was unable to be done due to the confines of the room that the lab was being performed in.  Images were taken with the CCD cameras to learn how to utilize them.  Multiple flats, darks, and bias pictures were taken so that the dark current of the cameras were able to be determined.

Introduction

When the images were taken with the CCD camera the lights in the room had to be dimmed so that the images would not become saturated.  10 Bias images, 10 darks at the same exposure time, 10 Flats were taken, and 1 dark image was taken at multiple exposure times.  A lecture was given on the methods of how to assemble and disassemble the telescope as well as the method to set up the telescope.

Procedure to Set Up CCD Camera

1.    Open Maxim DL Pro 6

2.    Go to view and select the camera control window.

3.    Click on setup camera and go to SBIG universal.

4.    Click on connect to STi.  Ensure that swap chips is selected to no, ensure guide chip is set to internal, and external trigger is set to no.

5.    Options – nothing selected. (No calibration)

6.    Click on connect.

7.    Set up exposures.

a)    Exposure preset

b)    Readout mode is set to raw.

c)    Set up the amount of time that each exposure will be.

d)    Set up the format to save the images as fits image 16-bit.

Method for Flat Fielding

This assumes the master frames are on hand for bias, darks, and for each filter, a master flat frame.

1.    Subtract the master bias frame from all others, including the other calibration frames.

2.    Scale the master dark to the exposure of the object and then subtract this “thermal” frame from all remaining ones.

3.    Divide the master flat pixel – by – pixel into an object image and multiply by the average pixel intensity in the flat.

     

     Results and Conclusion

     The end result of this lab was to measure the average bias noise of the images, calculate the average dark current, and to determine if there were any bad pixels in the camera.  The exercise of this assignment will prove invaluable for performing data gathering at Baker observatory.