The MMT all-sky camera

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

The MMT all-sky camera is a low-cost, wide-angle camera system that takes images of the sky every 10 seconds, day and night. It is based on an Adirondack Video Astronomy StellaCam II video camera and utilizes an auto-iris fish-eye lens to allow safe operation under all lighting conditions, even direct sunlight. This combined with the anti-blooming characteristics of the StellaCam's detector allows useful images to be obtained during sunny days as well as brightly moonlit nights. Under dark skies the system can detect stars as faint as 6th magnitude as well as very thin cirrus and low surface brightness zodiacal features such as gegenschein. The total hardware cost of the system was less than $3500 including computer and framegrabber card, a fraction of the cost of comparable systems utilizing traditional CCD cameras.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationGround-based and Airborne Telescopes
DOIs
StatePublished - 2006
Externally publishedYes
EventGround-based and Airborne Telescopes - Orlando, FL, United States
Duration: May 24 2006May 31 2006

Publication series

NameProceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
Volume6267 I
ISSN (Print)0277-786X

Other

OtherGround-based and Airborne Telescopes
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityOrlando, FL
Period5/24/065/31/06

Keywords

  • All-Sky Imaging
  • Observatory Site Conditions
  • Sky Monitoring

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Applied Mathematics
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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