Genesis CCD

I have recently completed a Genesis CCD for astronomical imaging. Information about the Genesis CCD is available at:

The camera I have built is a modification on the full kit available directly from Genesis. I bought the printed circuit boards along with the complete electronic components and the cold finger. This included the sealed DB25 connectors and all of the connectors and pins needed to complete the PC boards.

After paying for the kit by credit card it arrived at my home in Moree Australia about 2 weeks later. I had also ordered the Kodak KAF0401E CCD directly from Kodak and it arrived at about the same time.

My camera is housed in a diecast aluminium box 90mm X 90mm square. After drilling a hole in the lid I put an insert from an old camera in the hole. This allows me to screw in camera filters of 40.5mm diameter to maintain the camera airtight. Around this is the casing from an old Pentax mount tele converter. The optics have been removed so it is essentially an extension tube. It allows me to connect the camera to any K-mount lens or via a T-mount to any telescope.

To measure the temperature of the CCD I drilled one of the holes that was already in the cold finger all the way through and inserted the sensor from a proprietary min / max thermometer that I had been given as a promotion through my work. This seems to work very well. I achieve about minus 14deg C (ambient ~ 14deg C) using 5.2volts.

I have not arranged a shutter as yet and am simply covering the telescope during reading of the CCD. This is just a stop gap measure.

I have been very happy with my results so far. My first successful images are below.

They were taken using a Meade 90mm ETX placed on a German EQ mount with no guiding. These relatively short exposures at f/13.8 demonstrate stars down to mag. 15!

 Omega Centaurus (NGC 5139)

2x2 binning, 5 x 20sec exposures

Centaurus A (NGC 5128)

2x2 binning 5x 20sec exposures

 For comparison the next image was taken on 3/9/00 through my Vixen VC200L cassegrain. It is a mosaic of 2 images. Each image is 4 x 30 sec long. They were all unguided on a GP mount.

 Also through the Vixen are the following 2 images

Centaurus A

NGC 6744

I hope that this page gives some inspiration for others to try and build this low cost CCD camera. I plan to add many more pictures in time.

Edited 09/09/2000