Astronomical CCD Camera Noise
Astronomical CCD Camera Noise
The charged-coupled device (CCD) has become the de facto standard sensor type for astronomical photography. A CCD counts photons; there is noise in counting experiments (an uncertainty in the number of counts measured each time the experiment runs in identical conditions) that scales as the square root of the number of counts. This Demonstration shows CCD noise in the context of astronomical imaging from the ground. The object is what a perfect telescope would see from above the atmosphere, the ideal image is what a CCD would sense if there was no noise and measuring the photons was perfect, the measured image is what a real CCD would measure, and the corrected image is the measured image compensating for the mean values of the background and the dark current.