One-Shot Colour Camera!

The 'MX5-C' is the 'One Shot Colour' version of the highly successful MX5 CCD camera. It is an extremely compact cooled camera, with ideal characteristics for most any telescope, or telephoto lens.

Although tri-colour imaging is readily possible with the monochrome MX5, 'single-shot colour' is far easier and gives remarkably good results.

The MX5-C is fitted with a colour matrix CCD device, which uses yellow, magenta, cyan and green microscopic filters distributed over the pixel array. The software decodes the intensity data from the pixels and reconstructs a full-colour image! This image is not just the usual red, green and blue files that you get from tri-colour cameras, but also has a 'luminance' file which contains high-resolution brightness data and restores almost all of the resolution of the pixel matrix. Because of this, the filter grid does not compromise the camera resolution. A sophisticated software routine removes all of the colour errors from sharp edges and compact star images.

The system consists of a 50 x 100mm cylindrical camera head, weighing only 200 grams (7 oz), a 5 metre lightweight cable, and a small power module for mains, or battery use. The camera head is complete with a 1¼" drawtube adaptor and has a M42 Pentax thread barrel to allow you to screw on various standard camera lenses. A tripod bracket is also supplied.

The MX5 comes complete with a versatile Windows based control and processing program, MX5USB, which gives you an extensive range of features, including colour decoding, without the need to buy additional software (see our software page).

Further technical details of the MX5-C are given below:

The MX5-C camera specification:
CCD type:	Sony ICX055BK HyperHAD secondary colour matrix CCD with ultra low dark current and vertical anti-blooming.
Pixel size:	9.8µm (horizontal) x 12.6µm (vertical)
CCD Image format:	500 (horizontal) x 290 (vertical) pixels 500 (horizontal) x 373 (vertical) squared 500 (horizontal) x 580 (vertical) hi-res mode (using AstroArt)
CCD size:	Imaging area: 4.9mm (horizontal) x 3.6mm (vertical).
Spectral response:	Basic peak response at 520nm (Green), 50% at 400nM (Violet) and 670nm (Near infra-red). See colour filter response curves above.
Readout noise:	Approx. 25 electrons RMS.
Full-well capacity:	Approx. 120,000 e-.
Anti-blooming:	Overload margin greater than 800x
Dark current:	Dark frame saturation time greater than 5 hours.
A-D converter:	12 bit, 10µS conversion time, serial output.
Computer interface:	USB1.1
Image download time:	2 seconds
Power requirements:	115VAC @ 12VA, or 12VDC @ 700 milliamps max.
Cooling system:	Regulated constant-current cooling supply built-in. Single-stage thermoelectric cooler to give a CCD temperature of approximately 30C below ambient.
Size:	50 x 100mm black anodised aluminium barrel with M42 thread at CCD window end and 15 way 'D' style input plug at rear.
Weight:	200g.
Software:	Windows software included.
Sample Images:	M57 | M82 | M92 | NGC 7662 Note: These open in a new browser window.
Documentation:	MX5C User Manual (419k zipped MS Word file)