The DMK 31AG03.AS unifies three important characteristics for astrophotography: high resolution, fast refresh rate and a low price. The camera ships with IC Capture.AS, a comprehensive software package with which you can capture lossless and uncompressed images sequences and write them to disk as AVI files, or as a series of singular bitmaps.
The DMK 31AG03.AS ships with the monochrome Sony ICX204AL progressive scan CCD chip. With its 1/3 " format, the CCD chip produces a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. Even at very long exposure times - up to 60 minutes exposure are possible - noise is minimal. Thanks to this extremely high quality, the Sony ICX204AL CCD chip is also often used in other scientific, industrial and medical image processing applications.
The DMK 31AG03.AS does not compress the video stream it outputs - the video data that is captured by the CCD chip is outputted directly by the GigE connector. Similarly, the camera does not have an IR cut filter, a color filter, nor an other kind of electronic filter. The camera is, therefore, ideally suited to capturing very true-to-life images of the night sky.
In order to transfer the vast amount of data created by the stream of uncompressed and lossless monochrome images to the host PC, you need a very high speed bus. Hence, the DMK 31AG03.AS is fitted with a fast GigE connector.
The DMK 31AG03.AS ships with the device driver IC WDM GIGE TIS and the camera control and image acquisition application IC Capture.AS. Both of these run on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 (32 and 64 bit).
Software for Mac OS and Linux is available from third parties.
| Technical details are subject to change | |
| General Behavior | |
| Video formats @ FPS | 1024 x 768, Y800 @ 30, 15, 7.5, 3.75 FPS |
| Dynamic range | 8 bit |
| Optical Interface | |
| IR cut filter | no |
| CCD specification | Sony ICX204AL [PDF] |
| Type | progressive scan |
| Format | 1/3 " |
| Resolution | H: 1024 pixel, V: 768 pixel |
| Lens mount | C/CS mount |
| Electrical Interface | |
| Connector type | GigE |
| Supply voltage | 4.5 VDC to 5.5 VDC (via GigE cable) |
| Current consumption | approx. 500 mA at 5 VDC |
| Mechanical Interface | |
| Dimensions | H: 50.6 mm, W: 50.6 mm, L: 50 mm |
| Mass | 265 g |
| Manual Adjustments | |
| Shutter (exposure time) | 1/10,000 second to 60 minutes |
| Gain | 0 dB to 36 dB |
| Environmental | |
| Max. temperature (operation) | -5 °C to 45 °C |
| Max. temperature (storage) | -20 °C to 60 °C |
| Max. humidity (operation) | 20 % to 80 % non-condensing |
| Max. humidity (storage) | 20 % to 95 % non-condensing |
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