Atik 314l+ cooling temp.

[Astroblagger]

Hopefully I will give my atik314l+ its first run tonight, I see the outside ambient temp is going to be around-1, my question is do people who own it still chill the sensor right down think it said a -27 drop is possible. Or is it adequate to leave it cooling at -1? Will there be much noise difference?

[johnrt]

The colder the better, I have mine set to -25 all year, it will get down that low at this time of year no problem. In the summer when the nights are warmer it will only cool down to -10 or so, but I leave it set to -25 so it always as cold as possible. I don't need to use darks this way, just bias and flats.

[Coco]

I use all presnt & past CCD cameras at -10, that way the darks - bias are all constant. Ive seen no evidence on my data that they are cleaner at -20.

However there is no reason why you cant have a -20 & -10 library winter/summer if you feel happier.

If your kit comes from inside the house, the chill from the ccd window can fog your filters if there is any humidity in the optical train...

Just my pennies worth..

[Merlin66]

It's almost 40 degree outside at the moment, and I have the ATiK314 set to -10.......

[Astroblagger]

JUst set the atik up with filter wheel and flattner with my megrez 72 to find the focus point, there is alot of focuseer sticking out, just hope it doesnt slip!

[Astroblagger]

Just a quick question I see the Artemis software saves the images as FIT images, would it make any difference to change it to TIFF as I don't have a FIT viewer on my netbook?

[Freddie]

No difference to the image as will be same quality and file size. You can view the FITs in DSS if you have that on your netbook.

[Tom OD]

I have a Kodak chip and I can say that the colder the better. I can see a big difference between -10C and -20C in my darks. The Sony chips have excellent low noise levels, so while it nmight not be too visible I would go with the colder the better.

Tom.

[kirkster501]

Does this mean the temperature at the sensor it literally -25C ???? How does it do that then? Peltier cooling? Its not that cold to touch though? This is one of those physics things right about lack of energy to create that low temp?

[AstroManDan]

Atik told me that cooling more than -10 actually made no difference for the 314.

[Gina]

Atik told me that cooling more than -10 actually made no difference for the 314.

I can believe that I cool to -15 but for no particular reason. I've gone up to half an hour's exposure without noise