A number of filter varieties have been installed into the G2 series camera’s. The clearance requirement allowed for the filters are large and filters such as Astrodon filters (which are known for large filter housings) fit well and operate well. The user must ensure that good quality filters are used within the camera as the size of the optical glass must completely cover the CCD in order to reduce possible vignetting.

The SIMS application is a very powerful but very simple application provided with the camera. It controls all actions of the camera and also allows for the processing of your images. The SIMS application does not need to be installed onto your computer but can be run successfully of a USB memory stick. If you are not interested in using SIMS, drivers are available for MAXIM DL V4/V5 and Astroart. We are in the process of getting the Moravian Instruments cameras interfaced into the Stark Labs application – Nebulosity 2. SIMS does not run on Apple products.

Dual stage TEC is integral part of the camera mechanical construction. It is necessary to integrate TEC modules into camera body during assembly (it would be of course possible to redesign cold finger to replace TEC modules).

Camera can of course work with TEC switched off; it is enough to define required temperature at or above environment temperature. But I cannot see any reason to do so.

Our camera electronics consists of three or four individual PCBs (depending on the camera model). Of course it is designed to provide state-of-the-art noise levels. You simply need not to worry about camera noise regardless of the TEC switched on or off. Maybe you have such experience with other cameras, but this is not the case of our design. I may assure you the camera electronics is full of filters.

This depends on the usage frequency. Camera design is very moisture-resistant. Some users do not exchange silica gel for many years and the CCD does not frost (camera is designed so the possible moisture froze at the cold finger first and when the CCD passes freezing point, the air inside CCD chamber is already dry). But we do recommend such usage, because we had a bad experience with a camera operating at Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. They use the camera every clear night and did not to exchange silica gel for two years. The CCD never frosted, but the moisture inside the CCD chamber caused camera malfunction. They exchange silica gel regularly four or five times a year and have no problems now. The important thing is they used camera revision 2, new revision 3 is equipped with much better CCD chamber insulation (we removed possible sources of leakage) and also 3-times bigger silica gel container. The actual experience with the revision 3 must be accumulated now. Either way, revision 3 will not perform worse than revision 2.

Significant portion of the camera firmware is uploaded to the hardware from the device driver during power up. So updating of the firmware simply means updating of the camera .sys driver to newer version.

All monochrome cameras are supplied without any filter, the glass covering the CCD chamber is a high-quality multi-coated optical windows made in Germany, with better the 98% transmission between 380 and 660nm. Limiting of the camera spectral range (e.g. when used with refracting system) must be performed using a proper Luminance filter in the filter wheel.

Cameras with colour CCDs use air-spaced IR-block filter instead of clear glass to allow proper de-Bayer processing.

We have a wide range of camera adapters available. See the G2 and G3 camera user's manuals, available on our web site.

What is the meaning of C1 and C2 classes for certain Kodak CCD?
Moravian advise that the KAI-11002 CCD always requires perfect calibration (subtraction of dark frames), so the advantage of more expensive C1 is not so important for cooled astronomical camera. See Kodak Datasheet below