The Cookbook CCD camera is actually two CCD cameras described in a book titled The CCD Camera Cookbook by Viekko Kanto, John Munger, and Richard Berry. One camera uses the inexpensive TC211 CCD chip so it is called the Cookbook 211. The other camera uses the larger and more sensitive Texas Instruments TC245 CCD chip and is called the Cookbook 245. Both CCDs are made by Texas Instruments. The book contains step-by-step instructions and computer software for building and using both CCD cameras.
You can build a Cookbook 211 for as little as $250, but most people prefer to build the more powerful Cookbook 245, which requires about $350 in parts. The most expensive component in the Cookbook CCD cameras is the CCD. The TC211 CCD chip costs $35, while the TC245 chip costs between $95 and $125, depending on the supplier. More than 90% of all Cookbook camera owners have built the Cookbook 245. Many have opted to buy ready-made circuit boards, machined parts for the camera body, or a kit that includes all the electronic components for a total cost of about $525.
Yes. The computer is an essential part of the Cookbook CCD camera, but the Cookbook CCD camera was designed to run with very basic PCs. The older XT, AT, 386 computers work just as well for capturing images as the newest models. Many builders use notebook and laptop computers to run their Cookbook cameras. We recommend that you use an older, less-valuable computer, or a portable for capturing images at the telescope.
The Cookbook CCD camera is comparable in performance to commercial units on the market. Figures for well capacity (150,000 electrons), readout noise (~20 electrons r.m.s.), and dynamic range (72 dB) equal or exceed specifications for comparable commercial units. The Cookbook CCD camera's thermoelectric cooling system attains -30 Celsius, permitting exposure times over 60 minutes. The Cookbook CCD camera is inexpensive because the owner builds the camera.
Although a few Cookbook camera builders have degrees in electronic engineering, the greatest number of Cookbook builders have had no previous experience with electronics or computer technology. The CCD Camera Cookbook provides detailed instructions, and these, coupled with the step-by-step test software that comes with the book, allow anyone possessing "stick-to-it-ness" and basic familiarity with everyday tools to construct their own CCD camera.
Construction times vary with the free time the individual can devote to building the camera. The total time -- if you do everything yourself -- is about 50 hours. The fastest Cookbook camera we know took 10 days to build, but it takes most people four to eight weeks. Be prepared for sluggish delivery on parts; although the CCD chips and the thermoelectric coolers usually arrive within two weeks of order, the wait may be longer.
In the Cookbook you get 176 pages of detailed instructions plus software for testing and operating the camera. The book describes how CCDs operate, gives complete circuit specifications, parts lists, and electronic timing diagrams for both Cookbook CCD cameras. The diskette that comes with the book has computer test programs that allow the builder to check the camera's circuits as they are built, and also the software that operates the Cookbook camera. The Cookbook costs only $29.95, and small investment to make against a large return of a CCD camera.
The Cookbook camera is amazingly sensitive. For making images, many builders opt for integration times of just 30 to 60 seconds, and, of course, integrations of twenty minutes allow you to detect exceedingly faint celestial objects.
An outstanding feature of the Cookbook camera is the ease of finding celestial objects using very short "finder mode" integrations. On a 4-inch telescope, the Cookbook camera shows 15th magnitude stars in 1.5 seconds. This means that the Cookbook CCD camera delivers a picture to your computer screen every 2 seconds, so that with a 4-inch telescope you could locate Pluto in real time. Even with a 4-inch telescope, all of the Messier objects and thousands of NGC objects are easily visible in real time.
With a modest telescope and integration times of 30 to 60 seconds, the Cookbook CCD cameras show the Horsehead Nebula, the Leo I dwarf galaxy, and tens of thousands of faint NGC, IC, and UGC objects. Stack-and-track imaging, with effective integration times of 10 to 60 minutes, reach untold numbers of uncatalogued galaxies and stars fainter than those shown on the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey.
The Cookbook 211, using the inexpensive TC211 CCD with 192x165 pixels, is an excellent option for those who cannot afford a larger CCD camera. With the upgrade option of correlated double sampling and amplifier blanking, the Cookbook 211 rivals 14-bit cameras based on the same chip.
The Cookbook 245, with a count of 378x242 pixels, is a full-fledged imaging camera offering a higher pixel count than the ST5 or ST6, and virtually the same pixel count as the Kodak KAF-400 chip in 2x2 binned mode. Physically, the TC245 is an advantageously large CCD, with 17x20-micron pixels on a 6.4x4.8-millimeter CCD chip. With correlated double sampling built into the CCD, the TC245 is an excellent CCD imager for amateur astronomers.
Cookbook camera builders have taken outstanding images of the moon and planets with their Cookbook CCD cameras. For best results, you should use eyepiece projection or a Barlow lens for an effective focal ratio of f/45. This seemingly long focal ratio allows the Cookbook camera to capture diffraction-limited image detail with integration times of 1/10 of a second. The Cookbook 245 can make integrations as short as 1 millisecond (1/1000 of a second) and as long as 9999.9 seconds, over 2 hours and 40 minutes.
Yes. The Cookbook camera described in the book is equipped with a 1.25-inch adapter for easy insertion into most eyepiece holders, and the popular University Optics metal camera body parts set incorporates a camera industry standard T-thread on the front that will couple your complete Cookbook camera directly to a standard Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and to a variety of eyepiece adapters and standard 35mm camera lens adapters.
The camera head that contains the CCD chip weighs about two pounds and is 2.6 inches diameter by 3.2 inches overall length, less than some eyepieces. To convert signals from the camera for the computer, a small electronic interface box must be located within five feet of the camera head. Three cables and two coolant hoses connect the camera to the camera's power supply and the computer. Although the book suggests using 15-foot cables, builders report using cables over 40 feet in length.
The Cookbook camera uses a single-stage thermoelectric Peltier cooler to maintain the CCD at a temperature of -30 Celsius. Circulating coolant removes the heat from the camera body and helps to maintain a highly stable chip temperature. For field use, the camera can be operated without coolant, but for optimum performance we recommend a coolant reservoir containing at least 2.5 gallons (10 liters) of water or water/alcohol mixture.
City lights affect all CCD cameras, but less than they affect visual observing and astrophotography. Builders report having made images of the Horsehead Nebula from bright suburban skies and imaging the brighter Messier objects from urban downtown locations. Of course, you can expect to get better results imaging from dark rural skies, but the Cookbook CCD camera cuts through city lights (and moonlight) most effectively.
Ease of imaging with the Cookbook camera is equal or superior to other CCDs, including widely promoted commercial units. In all CCD imaging, your telescope, your computer, and your CCD must work in coordination, regardless of the type of CCD camera you are using. Imaging is always easiest in a small observatory because the set-up is minimal, and most difficult in remote locations.
Ease of imaging with the Cookbook camera is equal or superior to other CCDs because its rapid image display simplifies finding and focusing on celestial objects, and features such as autoscaling, multiple image mode, and single-keystroke save make image-taking fast and efficient.
Yes. Using an integration time of 1 second with an 8-inch telescope, the Cookbook users have been able to guide on stars of 14th magnitude. Appendix D in the Cookbook describes how to build an adapter to interface the camera's guide output signals for telescopes. The builder must accept the responsibility for designing and constructing the telescope interface. The Cookbook camera can also create a periodic error correction (PEC) table for playback during integrations. With a good quality 8-inch f/10 SCT, tracking accuracy is a bit better than 1 second of arc.
It is difficult to keep track of the number of completed cameras, but the publisher estimates that just two years after publication of the Cookbook over 2,500 cameras had been completed and are in operation, and many more are under construction at this time.
One year after The CCD Camera Cookbook was published, the publisher (Willmann-Bell, Inc.) introduced a $19.95 upgrade package with new software and detailed instructions for improving the performance of the original Cookbook cameras. Upgrades included a special Low-Dark-Current mode for the Cookbook 245 and correlated double sampling, amplifier damping, and Low-Dark-Current mode for the Cookbook 211. Willmann-Bell attempts to maintain a list of everyone who buys the Cookbook so that as further enhancements become available, builders can be notified.
The Cookbook camera produces images in the NASA-sponsored FITS file format that is widely used in both amateur and professional astronomy today, so you can process images from the Cookbook camera with virtually every software package made for astronomy.
However, your best buys in image processing software for the Cookbook camera are AIP245 and CB245, two software programs written by Richard Berry. Linear and nonlinear brightness scaling, unsharp masking, cropping, resampling, script-based batch processing, and saving processed images in the standard TIFF format are all included. AIP245 and CB245 were developed specifically for the Cookbook camera. AIP245 is included with recent editions of Introduction to Astronomical Image Processing by Richard Berry (Willmann-Bell) available for $29.95.
CB245 is available directly from Richard Berry. For stack-and-track imaging, Multi245 is a powerful software tool that enables the user to combine up to 255 individual integrations to reach very faint objects. Multi245 automatically dark corrects, flat-fields, brightness-scales, and registers the images. Multi245 costs $49.95 plus $3.00 for shipping. Order it direct from Richard Berry. For making tricolor images, Color245 is an excellent choice because it is fully compatible with AIP245, CB245, and Multi245.
The standard Cookbook does not to implement anti-blooming gate built into the TC211 and TC245 chips because anti-blooming causes the camera's response to become nonlinear, thereby complicating dark-frame subtraction and flat-fielding. To avoid blooming, Cookbook builders need only take multiple short integrations and sum them using the frame-average function included in AIP245. Builders with technical backgrounds can modify their own Cookbook cameras to activate the anti-blooming gate, if they so choose.
You can make RGB (red-green-blue) images with the Cookbook camera with standard tricolor filters. We have had good results the Wratten #25 red, Wratten #57 green, and Wratten #47 blue used with an appropriate infrared rejection filter, but Edmund Scientific's dichroic color separation filters (order #52547) are much better. Use CB245, AIP245, or Multi245 to calibrate and process your images, then let Color245 software combine them into a 24-bit color images in the TIF or BMP format. Print them to an ink-jet printer from any standard word processing, desktop publishing, or graphics-arts program.
Certainly. You'll find well over 100 images available on the Cookbook Camera Web site. Download all the images you want! The URL of the primary site is:
http://wvi.com/~rberry/
Willmann-Bell also maintains a copy of the Cookbook Camera Web site at this URL:
The images in these collections were made by amateur astronomers -- people like yourself -- who built their own CCD cameras and have proudly contributed their results for you to see.
This question is for you to answer. The Cookbook camera is not for everyone. It appeals strongly to people who feel the need to know how things work. You learn a lot about CCDs when you build the Cookbook camera, and because you are deeply familiar with the camera you can service and upgrade it yourself without lengthy and expensive returns to the factory. Financially, of course, you'll be $1,500 to $2,000 ahead of the game if you build a Cookbook camera. Most Cookbook camera builders say they could not even dream of owning a CCD camera if it were not for the Cookbook.
The most compelling reason to build the Cookbook camera is the pride you can take in a job you have done yourself. While other CCD owners go on about how much money they have spent, you can concentrate on taking images that equal or excel theirs knowing that the camera you are using is truly your own.
The best way to learn more about the Cookbook camera is to buy a copy of The CCD Camera Cookbook. For $29.95, you will have complete specifications, parts lists, instructions, timing diagrams, and lots of photographs showing how to build the Cookbook camera right in front of you, and you can also experiment with the software that is included with the book. Even if you were to decide to buy a commercial unit, you will almost certainly learn so much from reading The CCD Camera Cookbook that your time and money will have been well invested.
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