The Color QHY461 102 Megapixel Scientific Camera has a cooled CMOS SONY IMX461ALR-C BSI back-illuminated sensor with a 11760 x 8896-pixel array, 3.76 um pixel size, and 44 mm x 33 mm dimensions. Ultra-low dark noise. QHY461 has both mono and color version are available. This is the color version.
Native 16-bit A/D - 65536 levels
The QHY461 and QHY411 are the world's first scientific CMOS cameras with native 16-bit A/D on-chip. The output is real 16-bits with 65536 levels. (Most CMOS sensors are 12-bit or 14-bit. This means that the conversion ratio cannot achieve 1e-/ADU and weak signals are not very highly sampled. Photometric measurements of low signals in such cases are not as accurate. Some camera combines two 12-bit outputs to create 16-bit images, but the actual number of levels is still 4096 x 2 = 8192 levels. Still less than native 16-bits.)
Great Full Well: 44ke- @ 3.76 um
and 396ke- @ 11 um
One benefit of the back-illuminated CMOS structure is improved full well capacity. This is particularly helpful for sensors with small pixels. Even with unbinned 3.76 micron pixels the QHY461 has a full well capacity of 50ke-. When binned 2x2 to 7.5 microns the full well is 200ke- and when binned 3x3 to 11 microns the full well is 450ke-.
Ultra-Low Read Noise - 1e to 3e
This amazing QHY461 sensor has only 1e of read noise at high gain and 2.7FPS high readout speed. One electron of read noise means the camera can achieve a SNR >3 at only 4 to 6 photons. This is perfect performance when conditions are photon limited, i.e., short exposures, narrow band imaging, etc., making this large area sensor ideal for sky surveys and time domain astronomy.
Back-Illuminated - Electric Rolling Shutter - Low Dark Current
The QHY461 is a back-illuminated Scientific CMOS camera with extremely low dark current using SONY's Exmor BSI CMOS technology. The advantage of electronic shutter over mechanical shutter is high-reliability and stability when an observatory shoots a large number of pictures. (In general, the fan-blade mechanical shutter will break if it is used 200,000 times or so, and in some specific cases it easily fails to switch on or off.) The electronic shutter is a relatively perfect choice for observatories.
Best Match for HyperStar System
The round camera case design of QHY461 and the imager size is best match for HyperStar systems.
USB3.0 / 10GigaE
The QHY461 comes in two versions, USB3.0 and 10GigaE. The USB3.0 supports 1FPS readout speed. Each image is 300MByte. The 10GigaE version supports 2.6FPS readout speed. This is the USB3.0 version.
Air / Liquid Cooling
The QHY461 has Air / Liquid Cooling with 2-stage TE Cooler.
About the IMX411 Sensor:
The IMX461 is a 55 mm diagonal (Type 3.4) CMOS active pixel type image sensor with a square pixel array and 102 M effective pixels. This IC incorporates maximum 36 dB PGA circuit and 16-bit A/D converter. 16-bit digital output makes it possible to readout the signals of 102 M effective pixels at high-speed of 2.7FPS in still picture mode.
Features
- Back-Illuminated CMOS image sensor.
- Image size Diagonal 55 mm (Type 3.4).
- Total number of pixels 11760 (H) × 8896 (V) approx. 104 M pixels.
- Number of effective pixels 11664 (H) × 8750 (V) approx. 102 M pixels.
- Number of active pixels 11656 (H) × 8742 (V) approx. 101 M pixels.
- Chip size 48.64 mm (H) × 40.38 mm (V).
- Unit cell size 3.76 µm (H) × 3.76 µm (V).
- Optical black Horizontal (H) direction: Left 44 pixels, right 44 pixels Vertical (V) direction: Top 38 pixels, bottom 38 pixels.
- Substrate material Silicon.
The USB3.0 port is working and the 10Gigabit port will be functional in end of 2020 year with remotely FPGA upgrade to PRO. The QHYCCD Graber card will be finished in end of 2020 year also.
