Binning and EAA?

[cuivenion]

Is there any virtue to binning when using a colour cam for EAA? I use a GPCAM and Sharpcap live stacking.

[nytecam]

True in-camera binning will scramble the Bayer colours to a monochrome image but should show a camera 'speed' increase.  Only really effective in mono camera.  "Post-binning in s/w" merely rescales the image size either up and down but has no 'speed' gain - it's just common image rescaling.

Nytecam

[Astrojedi]

Yes, there is value to binning color cameras but it is a little nuanced.

In CCDs binning will usually lose color information as it happening at the analog (charge) level. So if you are using a CCD based camera binning a color sensor is primarily useful for view-finding as it does increase sensitivity (but you will not have color and also the obstructive Bayer matrix will result in lower resolution)

In contrast most currently available amateur CMOS based cameras do binning in software in the digital domain (although there are CMOS architectures that allow binning in the charge domain). CMOS sensors are able to maintain color because the binning is occurring at a higher computing layer which understands color (btw you can do this with CCDs as well. Programs like PixInsight allow you to do this).

Unfortunately binning in SW does not result in the same sensitivity increase (by sensitivity I mean magnitude reach here) as binning in the charge domain but it will still brighten the image.

I believe the GPCAM uses CMOS based sensors so binning will likely occur in the digital domain i.e. SW so you should notice the image brighten. I find this useful for EAA.

 

 

[cuivenion]

Great info, thanks for the replies.