Objective Prism image of the Solar Gravitational Lens of Proxima Centauri, taken with the RASA Schmidt telescope and our previous sensor, a Fingerlakes KL400 CMOS camera. The horizontal lines are spectra of stars in the field of view, from wavelengths 3600 Ang to 9500 Ang (left to right). The exposure is 0.25 seconds, and the field of view is 2deg x 2 deg. Monochromatic laser light would show up as a “dot” of one wavelength.
We now use, on the 0.28-meter RASA telescope, a QHY600MM-Pro CMOS camera, cooled thermoelectrically to -10C. This camera has 9576 x 6388 pixels, each 3.76 x 3.76 microns. Read noise is 1.5 e- (RMS), and dark current is 0.0032 e-/pixel/sec. Below is a typical image from a 1-second exposure a few degrees from the Galactic Center.
An image with the QHY600M camera. Above is a representative image from a 1-second exposure near the Galactic Plane. The horizontal lines are spectra of stars in the 2x3deg field of view. At lower left is a compact planetary nebula, showing two emission lines (as dots) that are [OIII] 5007 and 4959 Angstroms and Balmer-alpha from hydrogen.
A series of 7 sub-images (each 1 sec exposure time) of a region in the Milky Way Galactic Plane, taken with the QHY600M camera and RASA telescope. The persistent dots are emission lines from (at left) doubly ionized oxygen [OIII] 5007 and 4959 Angstroms, and (at right) from Balmer-alpha (hydrogen) 6563 Angstroms.
