Re: Best Webcamera for Astroimaging currently?

On Sun, 15 Feb 2009 18:44:03 GMT, David Nakamoto
<david.nakamoto@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I don't know if this is relevant, but when I was working for the imaging
department for JPL, we found that 16-bits simply gave you more bits of
noise to deal with. In other words, going from 12 to 16 bits simply
adds bits to the low end of the response range (which makes sense if you
think about it).

It does make perfect sense. What matters is the dynamic range of the
sensor and its associated readout electronics. The very best sensors are
close to 14 bits, but most are somewhat less than this. SBIG and SX
cameras, for instance, are mostly a little under 13 bits. Now it makes
good sense to use a 16-bit A/D converter when you have such a sensor,
but that doesn't mean you truly have 16 bits of information. That's
often a point of confusion.

While there are many cameras that output 16-bit data words, there are no
cameras at all that output data with 16 bits of dynamic range.
_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
.

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