For this driver, please select SBIG Universal on the Setup tab.
This driver supports all Santa Barbara Instrument Group parallel port, USB, and Ethernet cameras. The latest version of SBIG's camera drivers are required. You can download them from ftp://ftp.sbig.com/pub/SetupDriverChecker.exe
SBIG cameras are capable of being operated in TDI mode.
For parallel port cameras, select the parallel port address in Connect To. For Ethernet connection, select Ethernet and enter the correct IP Address for the camera. The IP Address is ignored when connecting to a parallel port or USB camera. To connect to a camera using USB, simply select the camera name from the Connect To dropdown.
Swap Chips, when activated, reverses the main sensor and autoguider sensor.
The Guide Chip setting is used to select between the internal guide chip and the separate guide head that is available as an option for many SBIG cameras . Select the Internal setting to use the guide chip that is built in to the main camera body. Select External Remote to use a separate "guide head".
Ext. Trigger enables the external trigger mode. When on, the camera will not start exposing immediately when the Expose button is clicked. Instead, the camera will wait until an external trigger signal is received. Only certain models support this feature. Contact SBIG for information on connecting an external trigger.
Important Note: Some cameras use a TC-237 guide sensor instead of the original TC-211 guide sensor. These sensors have much smaller pixels; it is strongly recommended to operate these sensors at 2x2 or 3x3 binning.
When using the integrated autoguider, turn on the Dual Chip Mode check box on the Setup tab.
A set of Advanced settings are also available for the camera. These settings can be changed using the camera setup dialog, before connecting, or changed while connected using the Options button on the Settings tab of the CCD Control Window.
Guider ABG affects the anti-blooming control for the autoguider CCD only. Anti-blooming for the main CCD is determined by the type of CCD chip installed in the camera.
Setting Binning Mode to Off-chip is useful when a non-anti-blooming CCD chip is installed. When enabled, it causes any binning to be performed after the CCD chip has been read (normally, binning is done inside the CCD chip before readout). Selecting this option results in slightly higher readout noise but greatly reduces blooming. This control has no effect for anti-blooming CCD chips, and has no effect for 1:1 binning. You can also set Binning Mode to Spectroscopy. In this mode, the main sensor can be binned Nx1 to Nx3, where N ranges from 1 to 255.
The Download Priority can be adjusted. Very High will ensure that no lines appear in the image due to readout delays, but may make it difficult to operate the mouse.
The Enable Fan setting can be used to activate or deactivate the camera fan. This can be useful if camera vibrations are affecting image quality.
Set the TDI Mode checkbox to
enable Time Delayed Integration exposures, in which rows are read out
of the camera continuously at a specified rate while the shutter remains
open. In astronomical applications, TDI is used to capture a wide (E
If the DSS Control check box is checked, the DSS Control dialog will be displayed as soon as the user connects to the camera. If already connected, checking the DSS Control option causes the DSS Control dialog to appear, and unchecking it hides the dialog. This dialog is useful when the camera is used in conjunction with a Deep Space Spectrograph.
SBIG's CFW-8 filter wheel uses an optical sensor to detect filter wheel rotation. This may cause light to leak in to the CCD even though the shutter is closed. To correct for this problem, enable Auto-Expose After Filter Change. When enabled, the plugin will automatically take a single very short exposure at the highest available binning after every filter wheel movement. This flushes any excess light from the chip, preventing it from corrupting subsequent images.
The Color Settings button appears if you are not currently connected, or if you are connected to a one-shot color camera such as the ST-2000XCM. When it is "popped up" or hidden, a compact version of the dialog is displayed, hiding the following three groups of controls. When it is depressed, the full dialog is displayed as shown.
The Debayer Mode selector allows you to choose the algorithm used for automatic color conversion. Fast mode produces reasonable color quality at a decent speed. High-Quality mode takes longer to convert the image, but produces images with fewer artifacts from the conversion process.
The X Offset and Y Offset selections are used to correct for any misalignment of the color mask in the CCD camera. If Auto Color images exhibit a completely incorrect color rendition, try selecting different combinations of these two options.
The Scaling % adjustments allow you to compensate for differing sensitivity between the color planes. You can adjust these while imaging a grey card or the Moon to remove the majority of any intrinsic color imbalance in the camera. Values of 100% result in no change. The scaling values can be typed in or adjusted using the spin controls.
The DSS Control dialog allows you to change the current mode of operation of a Deep Space Spectrograph. Clicking the Position Mode button moves the DSS slit out and configures the grating to show the image. Clicking the View Slit Mode button moves the DSS slit into position and configures the grating to show the image. Clicking the Grab Spectra Mode button moves the DSS slit into position and configures the grating to show the spectra.
Important Note: Some SBIG cameras contain interline CCD sensors which can be electronically shuttered, allowing them to achieve shorter exposures than frame-transfer chips, where the exposure duration is limited by the speed of the shutter. Unfortunately, the camera electronics behave differently for short exposures than for longer exposures, producing different bias patterns in the camera images. To successfully calibrate images from these cameras, bias frames cannot be used to calibrate images whose duration is shorter than .12s. These short duration images must be dark subtracted using a dark frame of the same duration as the light frame. Similarly, dark frames exposed for less than .12s cannot be scaled to match light exposures of a longer duration. For longer exposures, all of the calibration options work normally.
Note: The plug-in nominally supports TDI rates from 1 msec to 5 sec per row. However the fastest usable rate is determined by the speed of your computer, and the slowest by the dark current of your camera. With a USB camera on a 1GHz or faster computer, TDI will normally operate well using focal lengths from 400mm to 4000mm.
Availability of this feature depends on Product Level.