My images with a CCD camera are showing black or white streaks on the brighter stars. They are all bloomed out. What’s wrong with my scope?

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	My images with a CCD camera are showing black or white streaks on the brighter stars. They are all bloomed out. What’s wrong with my scope?

Answer

Nothing is wrong with your scope! It’s the camera.

Many CCD cameras and some digital SLRs have a problem with very bright objects in a predominantly dark field. When the charge is read out of the brightly illuminated pixel or pixels on the chip, it can actually overflow and interfere with the charge on adjoining pixels. It’s called blooming and shows as streaking to one or more sides of the image of the bright star or object (usually aligned along the rows or columns of the CCD chip array).

Software or firmware in the camera can control this and may need adjustment. If it cannot be user-adjusted or you don’t know how to do it, contact the camera manufacturer or dealer for support.

Article Details

Article ID:

2283

Created On:

Sep 03 2009 01:34 PM