Apollo series is the world’s first camera line designed specifically for solar photography, named after Apollo. The Apollo series features Sony sensors with global shutters and a focus on monochrome sensors.
Apollo-M is a solar camera developed by Player One Astronomy, which adopts the Sony IMX174 1/1.2” format monochrome sensor. The 5.86um pixel size accommodates a well depth of 32Ke with a total of 2.3MP (the resolution is 1944*1216), and the diagonal is 13.3mm.
Pregius Technology
Apollo-M (IMX174) and Xena-M (IMX249) based on Pregius 1st Gen, it was a gaint leap in CMOS sensor development. IMX174 and IMX249 has same performance, the only difference is IMX174 is faster (164FPS) .
Format
Apollo-M (IMX174) has 1/1.2″ format, this size is between Apollo-M MAX (IMX432) and Apollo-M MINI (IMX429).
Recommended accessories:
ACS (Active Cooling System)
ACS is a external air-cooled system, designed for solar and big format planetary cameras which already has PCS (Passive Cooling System). ACS can provide much better temperature control. When camera has PCS + ACS, temperature is only 7℃ higher than ambient, camera body is a little warm but won’t hot! ACS is not only can be used in daylight for solar imaging, it also could be used in night for DSO lucky imaging.
Photosphere 10nm filter
For better contrast in White light, Photosphere 10nm filter will be a good choice. it has 10nm bandwidth and CWL is 540nm.
ERF filter
Introduce new 1.25″ ERF filter for Quark Chromosphere (Ha verstion) , intend to reject energy and extend life time of your Quark.
2nd Gen – Sensor Tilt Plate
When taking solar photograph with prominence telescope, the Newton ring is annoying. Smoother solar image without Newton ring could be taken by adjusting the focal plate. Get a much smaller field curvature of the telescope.
The built-in high-density sponge shading pad can block the light from the side slits without any side leakage.
Passive Cooling System
Solar cameras working in daylight, temperature could be much higher than night. Heat of global shutter sensors will be a problem, especially some big format like IMX432. Player One add a new feature called Passive Cooling System to conduct the heat from the sensor out.
256M DDR3 Cache
Player One Astronomy cameras are the first one who adpots the DDR3 cache in all planetary cameras in the world! It helps stabilize and secure data transmission, it effectively avoids frame dropping and greatly reduces readnoise.
With the DDR3 cache, the camera does not have high demands on computing needs any longer, it will still has excellent performance even if it is connected to a USB 2.0 port.
DPS technology
The planetary cameras from Player One Astronomy have DPS (Dead Pixel Suppression) technology. The DPS is anaylse many dark frames to find out thoes fixed abnormal pixel and record the map in camera memory. In imaging, each exposure frames, thoes position of dead pixels will be given a median value according to the active pixels around that abnormal pixel.
Overvoltage and overcurrent protection mechanism
Player One cameras produced by the number one player ensures the safety of your camera and other equipment through overvoltage and overcurrent protection mechanisms.
Data Port
When the camera is connected to the USB3.0 interface and full-resolution preview is used, it can reach 164 FPS in RAW8 mode (10bit ADC). 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.
Use the ST4 guide cable to connect the camera and the AUTO GUIDE port of the equatorial mount to do guiding.
Performance
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, provide a very simple way to test readout noise.
Technical Specifications
Sensor
SONY IMX174 1/1.2" CMOS (mono)
Diagonal
13.3mm
Total Pixels
2.3 Mega Pixels
Max Resolution
1936×1216
Pixel Size
5.86μm
Chip Size
11.3mm×7.1mm
Frame Rate
164FPS（10bit）
Shutter
Global shutter
Exposure Range
32μs-2000s
Readout Noise
6.3-3.5e
QE Peak
≈77%
Full Well
24.8k e
ADC
12 bit
Data Port
USB3.0/USB2.0
Adapter
1.25″ / M42X0.75
Back Focal Length
12.5mm
Protective Window
D32*2MM High Quality AR Plus (Anti Reflection) Multi-Layer Coating
Diameter
66mm
Weight
160g
Resolution and FPS
Under USB3.0 mode Resolution 10bit ADC 1936×1216 164FPS More resolution options could be setup in capture software
