This page provides a jumpstation for a variety of web resources appropriate to the development and use of CCDs in professional astronomy. I make occasional searches of the web in an attempt to keep it complete and up to date. I am employed by the Nordic Optical Telescope, I have no association with any other company or institute named in this list.
As time permits, I'll extend this page to include SWIR detector info. In the meantime, please send me any links you'd like to see here.
If you have a link you would like me to add to this page, please let me know
These links are listed in no particular order.
CTIO --
Alistair Walker maintains the Tololo CCD pages, and there's a pointer
to info on the Arcon controller.
Nordic Optical Telescope
-- The observatory's CCDs and detector development programme.
ESO -- The European Southern Observatory's Optical Detector Team pages.
Ohio State Imaging Sciences Lab. -- Information on various OSU
instruments at MDM and elsewhere, info on how to use getters and get good
vacuums.
Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL), UCL, London -- CCDs for space missions.
Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO) -- Instrument pages include some description of MIT/LL devices, including a
Lumigen coated, thinned device and a deep depletion device.
UCO/Lick, Santa Cruz
-- Richard Stover & Co. have some interesting stuff
on Orbit CCDs, including a 2Kx4K device.
NAO, Japan: CCDs for Subaru - comparison of several
different brands of 2kx4k CCDs,
including EEV, SITe, MIT and Hamamatsu.
Berkeley Lab - UCO/Lick - High-resistivity
CCD colaboration documents.
University of Arizona Imaging Technology Laboratory
-- Mike Lesser's thinning lab. Look here for QE curves - modelled
and real. A how-to on UV flooding too.
IfA, Hawaii
-- Gerry Luppino's gang.
Cambridge, UK --
Paddy Oates is the CCD world's problem page agony aunt. These pages have
gone, together with RGO, although Paddy did tell me they'd be moved
elsewhere. As yet, I haven't found them, if anyone knows of their
whereabouts, please let me know.
San Diego, CA and
Astronomical Reasearch Cameras, Inc. --
Bob Leach, Frank Beale & Co.'s ubiquitous cameras are documented here.
Sternwarte der Universität Bonn -- Ralph Kohley's
info on CTE measurement, pocket-pumping and anti-blooming clocking.
Mount Stromlo and Siding Springs -- Bill Roberts describes the
MSSSO CCD user interface
Catania Observatory
-- Giovanni Bonanno's lab has a comprehensive description of their operation.
The University of Oregon, Dept. of Physics
provides a basic CCD Q & A page.
Maki Sekiguchi's Sloane Digital Sky Survey imaging camera database
The guys at the Danish IJAF
have a bunch of CCDs and some info on MTF measurement and washing CCDs.
The delta-doped CCD from Shouleh Nikzad at JPL
Observatoire Haute-Provence offers some info on an EEV 42-20 CCD
Fairchild Imaging -- chip foundry & camera provider, now using
Lesser thinning technology.
SITe -- a commercial CCD foundry and provider (detectors, other useful information).
E2V --
a commercial CCD foundry and provider (Detectors, cameras).
This used to be Marconi Applied Technologies and, before that, EEV.
Semiconductor Technology Associates Inc. -- Custom CCD provider (Richard Bredthauer's outfit).
Rockwell -- for IR and optical array detectors.
Kodak --
The Kodak CCD imager catalogue.
Thomson CSF, France -- a commercial CCD foundry/provider (product list).
Dalsa -- Foundry, manufacture
fast cameras and detectors
Philips make
CCDs up to 7kx9k pixels.
PixelVision -- a
commercial CCD imaging system provider (includes some useful notes
and tutorials).
PixCellent --
"PixCellent Imaging Ltd. has been set up to manufacture
and sell precision scientific imaging systems using EG&G hardware and
software components. PixCellent offer a range of heads, CCD chips and
controllers for fast (8 MHz/14-bit) and precision (16-bit) imaging
together with a wide range of software options." Includes a nice FAQ.
DTA -- turnkey systems from
Italy.
Spectral Instruments in Tucson make high end, turnkey systems, up to 16 bits/pixel and LN2 or closed-cycle dewars.
SBIG and
AstroCam make commercial CCD systems.
Apogee Instruments make a high-end, off-the-shelf system and offer the
"CCD University" with some
introductory on-line tutorials about CCD technology.
Roper Scientific
(was Photometrics and Princeton Instruments)
make high-end CCD camera systems.
Proscan elektronische Systeme GmbH
also produce slow-scan cameras, using Thomson CSF CCDs with up to 2048x2048 pixels, 5 MHz readout rate
and 12 bits deep. (2 MHz at 14 bits).
Andor Technology
offer a selection of TE-cooled cameras.
Jobin Yvon Inc. -- turnkey slowscan systems
Talktronics -- IR & CCD systems
Black Cat -- CCD systems
Pulse instruments -- FPA clock drivers
Starlight Xpress -- Turnkey cooled CCD systems.
XCam Ltd. -- Turnkey systems.
Mecastronic -- Turnkey systems.
The SDSU/ARC users group mailing
list for users of Bob Leach's detector controller.
CCD Astronomy Magazine (no longer published)
John McDonald offers
another page of CCD links
Bonner Denton's page is
curiously short of content on the subject of his favourite hobby (screaming
across the desert in cars that do passable impressions of airplanes without
wings, jet airplanes), but he does have a list of CCD resources
The Cookbook Camera Home Page
tells you what some of the more advanced amateurs are up to these days.
(They're catching up guys!)
Sky
Guide: Astrophotography -- A nice set of pages on astrophotography, mostly
for amateurs.
Tybee Evans
offers a long list of links and information, mostly for amateurs, but plenty of
useful stuff for the professional.
GSFC Materials engineering has a bunch of information on vacuum outgassing of various materials.
NASA Ames CryoGroup
for everything on snazzy new pulse-tube cryocoolers from a layman's intro
to theoretical analyses.
These are a bit long in the tooth, but
you
might find my CCD testing
cookbook useful. A
postscript version is available (caveat: it's still evolving; this
version is not site-specific). Here is the ADASS III paper (gzipped
postscript), I wrote with Rein Warmels on the systematic, in
situ testing of ESO, La Silla CCDs, and this is the poster (gzipped postscript)
that we presented at the actual meeting (well, Rein did; I
didn't go -- busy, busy, busy...).
I reduce much of my CCD time series stuff with Stellar Photometry Software by Jim Heasley and Ken Janes. (This page appears to have evaporated.)
I also use IDL for general purpose data reduction and analysis.
And I mustn't forget IRAF, which is a data reduction package specifically for reducing Astronomical data (everyone uses it.)
ESO has a page of data reduction and analysis tools, including MIDAS, Eclipse and Skycat.