ZWO ASI6200MC Pro camera color Full Frame

Description

Full Frame color camera from ZWO, the ASI6200MC Pro cooled.

The ZWO ASI6200MC Pro camera color Full Frame uses Sony’s latest back-illuminated IMX455 Full Frame format native 16-bit ADC sensor. The chip has a 3.76 µm pixel size, ultra-low 1.2e readout noise and an innovative breakthrough that results in zero amp glow.

A combination of highlights

The new ASI6200MC Pro camera is the color version of the ASI6200MM Pro. The camera combines an optimal range of features to allow you to take great pictures. The huge sensor and full-frame format allow you to capture detailed, large images. If you think that a one-shot camera is preferable to a monochrome camera, which requires special equipment and exposures with different filters. Then this camera is for you! Some of the highlights are:

• Sony IMX455 full-frame format sensor – for a great field of view
• True 16-bit ADC – with a high dynamic range up to 14 stops!
• 62-megapixel sensor with a pixel size of 3.76um – huge sensor and relatively small pixel size to capture stunning detail over a large field of view
• A full well depth of 4ke- – no need to worry about saturated stars
• Ultra-low readout noise of 1.2 e- – bringing out more detail in your images with improved dynamic range
• No amp glow – even at long exposures, meaning one less thing to worry about in post-processing

Amazing workmanship, lightweight body, solid image quality

ZWO has worked hard to reduce the weight of the camera while improving its overall performance. After years of technical accumulation and repeated mass reduction experiments by ZWO engineers. As a result, ZWO has finally reduced the weight of the ASI6200 to just 700 grams.

Full frame format

The ASI6200MC Pro uses a full-frame format camera sensor. The length and width of the sensor are 36mm * 24mm respectively, and the diagonal is 43.3mm. This is a 62MP camera with a small pixel size of 3.76um that can handle a large depth of 51.4ke. This makes it even possible to bring out small details from luminosity parts of galaxies, such as the core of M31 (Andromeda).

Native 16-bit ADC

The ASI6200MC Pro is our first batch of CMOS astronomy cameras with true 16-bit ADC. It’s not a CCD-style 16-bit ADC – it can actually achieve a dynamic range of 14 stops. This significantly improves image sharpness and contrast, and contrast gradients are smoother and more natural looking.

The ZWO ASI6200MC Pro camera color Full Frame IMX455 illuminated sensor

Sony’s backlit CMOS image sensor improves sensitivity and noise reduction – the key factors for improving image quality. It does this by radically realigning the fundamental pixel structure from front lighting to back lighting, while preserving the benefits of CMOS image sensors such as low power consumption and fast operation.

With a conventional front lighting structure, the metal wiring and transistors on the surface of the silicon substrate that form the light-sensitive region of the sensor (photodiode) hinder the collection of photons by the on-chip lens. A backlit structure minimizes the degradation in sensitivity to the optical angle response, while also increasing the amount of light entering each pixel due to the lack of obstacles such as metal wiring and transistors. These components have been moved to the back of the silicon substrate.

Camera performance

The ASI6200MC Pro delivers excellent performance with a dynamic range of up to 14 stops, significantly reducing the problem of overexposed images and making color transitions appear smoother and more natural.

If the gain value (gain) is set to 100, the high gain HCG mode will be enabled. We’re not saying it’s magical, but we’d like to think it’s fairly close. When the HCG mode is enabled, the readout noise is greatly reduced and the dynamic range is basically unchanged.

Two-stage TEC cooling, ultra-low dark current

Thanks to the two-stage TEC cooling, the ASI6200MC Pro can reduce the temperature of the CMOS sensor to more than 35 degrees Celsius below the ambient temperature, which can significantly reduce dark current generation and sensor noise even during longer exposures.

*The Delta T 35℃ has been tested at an ambient temperature of 30℃. It may break if the cooling system works for a long time. Also, if the ambient temperature drops, the Delta T would also decrease.
The unique dark current suppression technology can further reduce dark current noise. At a cooling temperature of 0 °C, the dark current noise is only 0.003e/s/pixel. This means that an exposure of 300s will only produce a dark power noise of 0.9e- which is completely negligible!

USB connection and 256MB DDR3 memory

The ASI6200MC Pro is equipped with USB 3.0 transmission interface and built-in 256MB DDR3 cache to ensure stable and secure data transfer. With a long exposure, frame drop is effectively avoided and the glow effect caused by a slow reading speed is greatly reduced.

Delivery of the ZWO ASI6200MC Pro camera color Full Frame includes: