CCD Operation

1. Linearity
Sensitivity of eye and film to the light is 1% and dependent
On the intensity.

2. Quantum Efficiency
Percentage of photon that are converted to electrons.
Film = 1% CCD = 60%
 Matching Pixels to the telescope :

A 4m f/2.7 mirror is used at best seeing condition 0.7.

Focal length = 4000 mm x 2.7 = 10800 mm

Plate scale = 1 radian / Focal length = 206265 arc sec / 10800 mm = 19.1 arc sec / mm

Plate Scale = Best seeing / Plate Scale = 0.7/19.1 = 0.0366 mm = 37 micron

To satisfy Nyquist Criteria, it should be spreadout over 2 pixels,

Pixel size = 18 micron.

Binning

2x2, 3x3 pixels array are taken together.

 The three primary broad components of noise in a CCD imaging system are
photon noise,
dark noise, and
read noise,
SNR= P /= P / P= P
 Quantum Efficiency - quantum yield of CCD chip

EM-Gain - multiplication factor for On-Chip Electron amplification (can be set to 1 for
normal CCDs)

Noise Factor - noise component (also called Multiplicative Noise) related to the
amplification process. The factor represents the statistical variation in the overall number
of electrons generated by the initial detected charge. For a stochastic gain process in a
EM-CCD the noise factor = 1.41 and for normal CCDs = 1.0 and for modern ICCDs =
1.6.

Dark Current - charge generated by thermal generated electrons. The actual dark
Noise is the statistical variation of the Dark Current (sqrt(Dark Current). Dark Current
can be subtracted from an image while the dark noise remains.

Spurious Noise - Clock Induced Charge (CIC) which is independent of the exposure
time. During the transfer of electrons there is a small probability of producing extra
electrons through impact ionization. Is normally hidden in the ReadOut Noise for normal
CCDs and ICCDs. For EM-CCDs those charges will be amplified and become
detectable.

Read Out Noise - noise related to the actual ReadOut process. Faster readout speeds
will lead to a higher ReadOut Noise. That noise can be effectively reduced to 1 by using
an EM_CCD.
 Shot noise - represents the uncertainty in the number of incoming photons. It is an
inherent noise (can not be overcome) and is defined by POISSON statistics.

Correction Factor - Assume the photon flux is 100 photons per pixel per frame for an
16m CCD chip. To compare that to a 8m chip keep the following in your mind:

16m2 / 8m2 = 4 --> to compare the SNR values you have to use the x=100 photons
for the 16m CCD chip and the x =100 photons / 4 (!!!) = 25.

In other words, 100 photons/frame/pixel for a 16m chip corresponds to 25

photons/frame/pixel for an 8m chip!

SNR= SIGNAL / sqrt( NF2 * (SIGNAL + DARK + SCIC2) + (SR2/GAIN2))

 The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is used in imaging as a physical measure of the
sensitivity of a (digital or film) imaging system.

SNR is determined as the ratio of the net signal to the RMS

noise.
If we assume we have a number of photons P falling on a camera pixel with a Quantum
Efficiency DQE this will generate a signal of Ne electrons as below.

The incoming photons have an inherent noise ?signal known as photon Shot noise and as
the photons follow Poisson statistics this is the given below:

The other noise sources are: d-readout is the readout noise, d-dark is the noise resulting
from thermally generated electrons (so called dark signal) and d-signal is the noise
generated by the photon signal. Putting these terms together we can then generate an
expression for the signal to noise ratio for a typical camera:

Substituting for the expressions for Noise we can see the equation for signal to noise is as
follows:
BIAS FRAME DARK FRAME

FLAT FRAME LIGHT FRAME

Shot noise or photon noise

Shot noise is the fluctuations of the number of photons that are detected due to their
occurrence apart from each other. This noise is inherent to the nature of light and therefor can
not be prevented. Due to its statistical occurrence however, we easily can get rid of them by
combining multiple detections; stacking.

Read noise

The error that occurs when reading the charge of the electrons by the amplifier. The pixel will
accumulate a number of electrons, which are measured in microvolts per electron. Before we can
pass this signal on to the Analog/Digital Converter (ADC), we need to read and amplify the
signal. This is where we encounter the read noise, as the amplifier cant do a perfect job. This is
also influenced by build quality. Well designed amplifiers exhibit high linearity and introduce
minimal noise.

Dark current or thermal noise

Dark current is the build up of thermally generated electrons in the pixels. The rate of dark
current accumulation depends on the temperature of the sensor. Thats why cooling is such a
big thing in astrophotography. Since most DSLRs dont have cooling, this is perhaps the most
important part of noise. You can use darks to subtract this thermal noise, but you will have to
carefully match the temperature since the dark current accumulation is temperature dependant.
An other way to get rid of most of the dark current noise is the use of dithering.
Bias

This type of noise is very structured and inherent to the camera design. Because of the many
electronics there will be interference with the very sensitive electronics of the sensor, resulting
in noise. Luckily we can get rid of this noise quite easily because of its highly structured nature
by using bias frames. Just create a superbias and calibrate your frames with that.

Hot- and cold pixels

The hot and cold pixels are basically two forms of broken pixels. In both cases no signal is
acquired anymore by those pixels. They are a problem in two ways; they present them selves
as unwanted signal or a lack thereof and they prevent us from capturing the photons that fall
on those pixels.
We can get rid of them in our final image by using some form of pixel rejection. Furthermore
we can use dithering to shift the image over the pixels so we do capture the photons that would
otherwise be falling on the dead pixel.

Cosmic Rays

Even though this is of course unwanted signal, I cant help but thinking its very cool we are
actually capturing cosmic rays on our image sensors.
Cosmic rays are high energy particles that continually bombard the Earth. Some cosmic rays
are generated by the sun, while others originate from far outside of our solar system. Cosmic
rays will appear as a bright cluster of pixels or as line of bright pixels somewhere on your
sensor. We can get rid of them fairly easy by using pixel rejection in our integration process.
Air glow

Because of various processes in the earths upper atmosphere a faint but significant amount
of glow (light/photons!) is visible at all times. Especially low on the horizon this becomes a
real factor to take into account when imaging, because you look through more of the
atmosphere than if you were to aim your telescope straight up. Thats (partly) why you
normally dont want to image objects when they are low on the horizon. This is not
something to get easily rid of, so we will have to make sure our signal stands out strong
enough above this airglow signal. This effects the faint(est) signal the most of course.