Player One Saturn-M SQR (IMX533) USB3.0 Mono Camera

Design for Lunar, Solar mosaic, and DSO lucky imaging!

Saturn-M SQR and Saturn-C SQR is the most powerful planetary camera in our history! Based on the IMX533 BSI sensor, high image quality, high resolution and square format, and non-amp-glow feature, the camera will be great for lunar, solar mosaic, and DSO lucky imaging.

Product Description

Saturn-M SQR (IMX533) camera is developed by Player One Astronomy, SQR means its sensor is square. Saturn-M SQR camera, which adopts a Sony IMX533 1” square format monochrome sensor. The 3.76um pixel size accommodates a good depth of 73Ke with a total of 9MP  (the resolution is 3008*3008), and the diagonal is 16mm.

STARVIS Technology

Saturn-M SQR (IMX533) camera is based on Sony STARVIS technology, it is back-illuminated pixel technology used in CMOS image sensors.

Format

Saturn-M SQR camera has 1″ format, which is quite big for imaging.

Extend Full well Capacity

Based on our technology, we improved the full well of the Saturn-M SQR camera to 73Ke, it’s almost 1.5 times more than IMX533 Basic (50ke).

High Frame rate

Based on our technology Saturn-M SQR camera can run 43FPS under RAW8 mode, which is much faster than existing models on the market.

Dual Sampling Mode

Saturn SQR series has a dual sampling mode. Normal mode and LRN mode have different advantages in imaging.

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

2. LRN (low readout noise) mode has lower readout noise and higher dynamic range. It is more suitable for DSO lucky imaging.

Highlights

Non-Amp-Glow

The dark frame of the Saturn SQR (IMX533) camera is totally “dark”, that's why we call it a “Non-Amp-Glow” camera!

300s dark frame of Saturn SQR camera(resize to 50%):

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

Recommended accessories:

ACS (Active Cooling System) is an external air-cooled system, designed for solar and big format planetary cameras which already have PCS (Passive Cooling System).

ACS can provide much better temperature control. When the camera has PCS + ACS, the temperature is only 7℃ higher than ambient, the camera body is a little warm but won't be hot!

ACS cannot only be used in daylight for solar imaging,  it also could be used at night for DSO lucky imaging.

Saturn SQR camera is also very good for lunar and planetary imaging, its 1″ big format and 9MP total pixels, easier to capture the full disk of the Moon and the Sun, or make mosaics more efficient.

Features:

The naming of Player One Astronomy cameras is unique. Planetary camera line naming depends on the size of the planets, Mars(1/3″), Neptune(1/2″), Uranus(1/1.2″), Saturn(1″), Jupiter(4/3″).

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

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

Cutting-edge Design

The planetary cameras developed by Player One Astronomy use a scientific and technological regular hexagon to construct the main body line, supplemented by round chamfers to achieve both rigidity and flexibility. The positive red, similar to a summer fire, is paired with the low-key and steady black, and the super-fine frosting process on the entire surface makes the camera look elegant and cool, highlighting the style of high-end players, so much so that you can’t take your eyes off 

2nd Gen – Sensor Tilt Plate

When taking deep sky objects, using a sensor tilt plate can 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

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 ones to adopt the DDR3 cache in all planetary cameras in the world! It helps stabilize and secure data transmission, 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.

DPS technology

The planetary cameras from Player One Astronomy have DPS (Dead Pixel Suppression) technology. The DPS analyzes many dark frames to find out those fixed abnormal pixels and records the map in camera memory. In imaging, in each exposure frame, those positions 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 us ensure the safety of your camera and other equipment through overvoltage and overcurrent protection mechanisms.

Data Port

When the camera is connected to the USB 3.0 interface and a full-resolution preview is used, it can reach 43 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 the guiding.

Performance

HCG open at gain=125. Saturn SQR series has dual sampling mode, Normal mode has faster fps, and LRN (low readout noise) mode has lower readout noise and higher dynamic range.

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, which provide 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.

Absolute QE Curve

Mechanical Drawing

Specifications