Player One Poseidon-C Pro (IMX571) USB3.0 Colour Cooled Camera

Features:

DSO cooled camera line is the most advanced product line in Player One history. We started the project in 2021, and through a lot of modifications and rebuilds, we made this final version. It brings our newest technology and design to everyone, we are very proud to introduce this camera line.

Power Supply Not Included! - You can purchase here... https://www.microscopecameras.co.uk/player-one-12v-5a-power-supply-dc55-x-21mm

Drivers and softwares download: http://player-one-astronomy.com/service/software/

Manuals download: http://player-one-astronomy.com/service/manuals/

New Cutting-edge Design

Polygons like regular hexagons are quite Player One; using the DSO-cooled cameras we want to make them more beautiful and practical. After a lot of experimentation,  we settled on the final style, which uses a scientific and technological octagon to construct the main body line and four sides of cambered surfaces, supplemented by round chamfers to achieve both rigidity and flexibility. The front piece is round to avoid diffraction on RASA. The positive red, similar to a summer fire, is matched with the low-key and steady black, and the super-fine frosting process on the entire surface makes the camera look elegant and cool maintaining Player One style.

Poseidon-C Pro (IMX571) cooled camera is developed by Player One Astronomy, and its design for advanced DSO imaging. it adopts a Sony IMX571 APS-C format color sensor. The 3.76um pixel size accommodates a good depth of 71.7Ke with a total of 26MP  (the resolution is 6252*4176), and the diagonal is 28.3mm.

Rear Adjustment 4 Point Sensor Tilt Plate

When taking deep sky objects, using a sensor tilt plate can get a much smaller field curvature of the telescope. We adopt rear Adjustment and 4 point tilt plate, which has a lot of advantages in usage.

4 Point adjustment makes it easier to know which corner is needed to adjust. The built-in high-density sponge shading pad can block the light from the side slits without any side leakage.

To understand 4 point adjustment method, we made an example for users:

Deep Cooling

Player One cooled camera series uses 2 Stage TEC Cooling unit, after improving the structure design to reject the heat back to the camera chamber, Camera Delta-T can reach over 40℃.

512MB DDR3 Cache

As an improvement, the DDR3 cache in cooled cameras is increased to 512MB. It helps stabilize and secure data transmission, it effectively avoids frame dropping, and greatly reduces readout noise.

With the DDR3 cache, the camera does not have high demands on computing needs any longer, it will still have excellent performance even if it is connected to a USB 2.0 port.

STARVIS Technology

Poseidon-C Pro (IMX571) cooled camera based on Sony STARVIS technology, it is back-illuminated pixel technology used in CMOS image sensors.

APS-C Format

Poseidon-C Pro cooled camera has APS-C format (23.5mm*15.7mm), this size is quite big for DSO imaging.

Native 16bit ADC

IMX571 sensor has a native 16-bit on-chip ADC. Native 16bit ADC (65536 levels) provides higher sample resolution than 12bit (4096 levels) or 14bit (16384 levels). When we do non-linear transformation, 16 bit data can endure very strong transform and also could bring much better light and dark transition, furthermore, 16 bit can make the color more vivid.

Non-Amp-Glow

Poseidon-C Pro cooled camera is a Non-Amp-Glow camera too!

300s, gain=0, offset=10, dark frame at -20℃ of Poseidon-C Pro cooled camera: DOWNLOAD

Preview of Dark frame: Exposure=300s, gain=0, offset=10, temp=-20℃   STF auto-Stretch in Pixinsight 1.86

Non-Amp-Glow can give us a very clean background, making it much easier to get high-quality images.

Type-C Data port and Power port

The back piece of the cooled camera has 2 Type-C data ports and a 12V DC 5.5×2.1mm power port.

Main data port support USB3.0 protocol, the camera can run 15fps under RAW8 mode. Type-C port is easier to plug in when assemble the imaging equipment in night.

When recording images, since the actual writing speed will be affected by the writing speed of the hard disk itself, when the hard disk writing speed is slow, the recording may not reach the theoretical speed. It is recommended that you use a high-quality solid state drive to record data to give full play to the performance of the camera.

The camera has 12V DC5.5*2.1mm port to provide enough power to TEC cooling system. If you don’t need to power up cooling, only need to connect the main Type-C port, the camera will works as a uncooled camera.

Standard Cable Usage

Cooling System and Anti-Dew Heater

In ASCOM window, we provide 3 adjustable parameters: Target temperature, Fan Speed and Anti-Dew power.

Standard Delta-T: 40℃ (±2℃), when ambient temp 30℃, fan speed 100%, dew heater 10%.

Recommend Delta-T settings: 35℃ below ambient, fan speed 70%, dew heater 10%, power consumption 40- 60%.

The rotation speed of the cooling fan is also adjustable, the default value is 70% speed.

Dew problem is the biggest enemy in astro imaging, the camera integrated anti-dew heater in front of the camera. The heat power is adjustable.

Overvoltage and overcurrent protection mechanism

Player One cameras produced by us ensure the safety of your camera and other equipment through overvoltage and overcurrent protection mechanisms.

Performance

Dual Sampling Mode

The Poseidon series has a dual sampling mode. Normal mode and Low Noise mode, have different advantages in imaging.

1. Normal mode has a faster FPS, it is more suitable for planetary imaging.

2. Low Noise mode (LRN) mode has lower readout noise and higher dynamic range. it is more suitable for DSO imaging.

At gain=0, the camera has 14.26 stops dynamic range and 71.7Ke full well capacity, readout noise is 3.96e.

HCG open at gain=125, the camera has 13.58 stops dynamic range and 16.6Ke full well, readout noise drop to only 1.36e.

Low Noise mode

Normal Mode

Frame rate

Poseidon-C Pro cooled camera can run 15FPS under RAW8 mode, much faster than existing models on the market.

Full well

Poseidon-C Pro cooled camera has 71.7Ke full well, it’s over 1.4 times than IMX571 Basic (50ke).

Readout Noise

Regarding readout noise, we solemnly promise that all values are obtained from actual tests.  And for users, you could use Sharpcap 4 for testing. SC4 has a function called Sensor Analysis, providing a very simple way to test readout noise.

Player One wrote a tutorial on their website: https://player-one-astronomy.com/service/manuals/

If you are interested in readout noise testing, you may try it yourself, which is very simple.

Dark Current

The dark current is only 0.000105 e/s/pix at -20℃ and 0.001178e/s/pix at 0℃. In entire curve, dark current is almost like a straght a line, which can prove that Poseidon camera has very good quality.

QE Curve

Mechanical Drawing

BFL Solutions

Package List

Specifications