Monochrome and colour CCD's/cmos

[paraletic mirror]

After looking about at CCD's and Cmos cameras, i was wondering with a monochrome camera and a rgb filter set is it still possible to get real colour images? obviously after you have taken you shots with said filters and combined them, as appose to buying a colour ccd/cmos one and shooting in colour i also realise that even with a colour ccd your better shooting for real colour with filters?

Cheers all

[Freddie]

Hi, not quite sure what you mean by "even with colour ccd you're better shooting for real colour with filters" as typically you would just use an IR cut filter with a colour ccd. In terms of using mono and RGB filters, then yes, you just combine these to get real colour. Obviously you need to adjust the balance of each filter in the combined image to get the colour you want. Hope that helps.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Sure you can get real colour by combining monochromes taken through different filters. Here are two examples I took

[ollypenrice]

All digital images are shot through colour filters. It's just a question of where you put them. On a 'colour' camera the filters are placed in a matrix of (usually) red, green, green, blue over groups of four pixels over the entire chip. With a mono you shoot through three filters in turn with all the pixels. One is no more 'real colour' than the other. The methods give exactly equivalent colour.

Olly

[paraletic mirror]

so theres not much difference in the end image if shooting between monochrome and colour? im very new to astro imaging and i like to do alot of question asking/research before i go out and spend silly amounts on a CCD lol

[butlermike]

Wouldn't you get better sensitivity shooting through a specific filter onto a mono sensor as all pixels are recording that 'colour'. A colour camera (with the matrix in) won't be using all pixels as (with a canon DLSR at least) 2 of every 4 pixels are green and then 1 blue and 1 red.

That's my understanding anyway...I wait to be corrected.

[butlermike]

Oops, I meant DSLR in case that confused anyone!

[Freddie]

That's correct, mono is more sensitive.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Yep, this is why I moved to mono for my planetary imaging

[paraletic mirror]

ok then monchrome ftw

[Kropster]

Surely......When shooting mono, you are taking three exposures, to get the same result as a colour camera using probably three times the exposure time for a single colour shot.

Same result for same total exposure time?

[Cath]

A monochrome camera will give you full real colour pixel resolution when shooting through RGB fikters, where as a colour camera gives you a 'simulated' full colour resolution.

A colour camera (as has been said) has to divide up the available pixels between the 3 RGB colours, and so most of the pixels in the image you get to see are simply guesses at what the camera thinks they would be, sometimes the guesses are correct, sometimes they are not.