AAVSO: American Association of Variable Star Observers
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CCD Principles of Operation (Abstract)

Volume 21 number 1 (1992)

William Schempp
Photometrica Ltd., Tucson, AZ

Abstract

(Abstract only) Three basic aspects of CCD operation and usage are discussed. Part I discusses basic CCD operation. How light is detected, how pixels are formed, how charge is moved, and how charge is read out are considered. Part II looks at camera operation. i.e., those aspects of CCD operation that take place off of the chip. Topics such as sub-array readout, binning, and signal processing are discussed. Part III considers the first stages of image processing that any CCD image must undergo before involvement with the processing tools peculiar to the particular problem at hand. Dark current subtraction and flat field correction take up the bulk of the discussion.