Ultra-Low Noise Readout System for Charge Coupled Devices

Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA)/National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) Engineering, 2009-10

Liaison(s): Mark Hunten, Peter Moore
Advisor(s): Charles Thangaraj
Students(s): Kevin Chan (F), Christopher Feruson (S), Aaron Guillen (TL-S), Matthew Keeter (S), Masato Kocberber (TL-F), Narayan Propato (F), Timothy Nguyen (S)

Currently, terrestrial-based astronomical observatories run by NOAO use analog data acquisition systems for reading charge coupled devices in telescopes. These analog electrical systems introduce a considerable amount of noise in the output signal. NOAO would like the team to create a digital data acquisition system and to implement the technique of over-sampling to filter any noise. Reduction of noise will improve image quality and reduce the time required to obtain high-quality images.