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New Product: Andor Launches Balor Camera for Astronomy

New Product: Andor Launches Balor Camera for Astronomy

 

 

Balor is designed for ‘dynamic astronomy’ applications such as Orbital Debris tracking, Solar Astronomy, Solar System Object detection, Exoplanet Discovery, Atmospheric Studies and Fast Time Resolution Astrophysics.

Balor combines 2.9 e read noise with an exceptionally fast 18.5 millisecond readout, allowing up to 54fps full frame readout which is perfect for studying solar or atmospheric dynamics. Quantum Efficiency is optimized for broad response across the visible-red-NIR range, with no etaloning effects, outperforming in the area of quantitative photometric measurement. The large 12 µm pixels offer an 80,000 electron well depth and an on-chip multi-amplifier design means the whole photometric range, from noise floor to saturation limit, can be captured with a single image. The wide dynamic range is complemented by enhanced on-head intelligence to deliver market-leading linearity of > 99.7%, for unparalleled quantitative accuracy of measurement across the full signal range. Such capability is ideal for photometric accuracy of light curve measurement across high dynamic range object fields.

Minimizing down-time in astronomy is paramount; not only does Balor avoid the need for a mechanical shutter, Andor is the only camera manufacturer with capability to apply an innovative hermetically sealed, permanent vacuum enclosure design to the sCMOS sensor technology. This uniquely protects the delicate sensor from attack by moisture and other gas contaminants, thus preserving both QE and stable cooling performance year after year, removing the need to have the camera re-pumped.

Balor delivers both Rolling Shutter and Global (Snapshot) Shutter exposure modes, with the latter being used for applications where every pixel across the array must carry the same relative exposure timing correlation, relative to an external timestamp.

 

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