Cooling Modification for Canon Rebel

16 Nov 2009

      Here is a project I've been working on based of another modification 
done by a member on cloudy nights for anyone who is interested.

The idea for those not acquainted with this, is to cool the sensor of 
the camera down as much as possible. This reduces your background noise 
and makes your frames retain much more of the original light signal 
coming off the object your shooting. It helps create a much better 
signal to noise ratio, which makes for higher quality stacks of images 
with less light frames.

I based my "cold finger" design off of the one by Anat here

http://thaiastro.nectec.or.th/hypermod/

My goal was to preserve the functionality of the camera after the 
modification for daytime use as well, unlike what Anat and others have 
done, which is to totally convert the DSLR into an astro-only camera. 
The cold finger is the aluminum slid under the circuit board for the 
cmos, and above the actual cmos itself. This is then all sealed up with 
hot glue to prevent moisture buildup when cooling.

Images from my version of the hyper mod.

http://www.rankinstudio.com/dnloads/mod1.JPG
http://www.rankinstudio.com/dnloads/mod2.JPG
http://www.rankinstudio.com/dnloads/mod3.JPG
http://www.rankinstudio.com/dnloads/mod4.JPG
http://www.rankinstudio.com/dnloads/testrun.jpg

Below are crops from the center of the sensor uncooled, and cooled. Can 
see a significant noise drop. I am not sure what the exact temperature 
of the sensor is as I didn't have a temperature gauge to install there, 
but the measurement where the cold finger entered the camera was around 
45 deg F after only 4 or 5 minutes of cooling.

These are dark frames (taken with the lens covered to show the noise 
signal) 4 minutes long at very high sensitivity/gain ISO 1600.

http://www.rankinstudio.com/temptest <http://rankinstudio.com/temptest>

Ill update when it is finished.

Cheers,

David Rankin

David Rankin

Joe Bauman

tags

participants (2)