PANASONIC MN34230PLJ SENSOR

The stand-out feature of this camera is the 4,656x3,520-pixel sensor. The chip has a 21.9mm diagonal, so if you want to use 1.25-inch filters you will need to mount them as close as possible to the sensor to avoid excessive vignetting. The small (3.8µm) pixels can be binned together for greater sensitivity. It is difficult to obtain a precise quantum efficiency value, but the overall sensitivity seen throughout our testing was very acceptable. Relative peak sensitivity in red and green are very similar, with blue coming in at around 80 per cent. The sensor supports region of interest definition, an essential for this device’s dual roles as a wide-field deep sky camera and one that can concentrate on the relatively small target of a planet’s disc. Read noise is extremely low at 1.2 electrons at 30db gain and, despite their tiny size, the full well depth of each pixel is excellent at 20,000 electrons. Long exposure noise is impressively low with the camera’s cooling enabled.