Player One Apollo-M USB 3.0 (IMX174) Camera Mono

The Apollo series incorporates Sony global shutter sensors and focuses on monochrome sensors.

* Note: The solar camera requires power rejection and light reduction, such as Baader film or Herschel wedge. Please DO NOT use it directly for imaging the Sun.

Product Description

Apollo-M is a solar camera developed by Player One Astronomy, which adopts the 1/1.2" format Sony IMX174 monochrome sensor. The pixel size of 5.86um accommodates a 32Ke well depth with a total of 2.3MP (resolution is 1944*1216), and the diagonal is 13.3mm.

Pregius Technology

Apollo-M (IMX174) and Xena-M (IMX249) based on Pregius 1st Gen, were a major leap in CMOS sensor development. IMX174 and IMX249 have the same performance, the only difference is IMX174 is faster (164FPS).

Format

Apollo-M (IMX174) has a 1/1.2″ format, this size is between Apollo-M MAX (IMX432) and Apollo-M MINI (IMX429).

Recommended accessories:

ACS (active cooling system)

ACS is an external air cooling system, designed for large format solar and planetary chambers that already have PCS (Passive Cooling System). ACS can provide much better temperature control, when the chamber has PCS + ACS, the temperature is only 7 ℃ higher than ambient, the chamber body is a little warm, but not hot! ACS can not only be used in daylight for solar imaging, but also at night for lucky DSO imaging.

Photosphere 10nm filter

For better contrast in white light, the Photosphere 10nm filter is a good choice. It has a bandwidth of 10nm and a CWL of 540nm.

ERF filter

We introduce the new 1.25″ ERF filter for Quark Chromosphere (Ha version), with the intention to reject energy and extend the lifetime of your Quark.

Highlights

Features:

Unique camera nomenclature Player One Astronomy. Solar chamber line, named after Apollo, the sun god. The suffix in the name describes the major feature of the camera.

Download drivers and software: https://player-one-astronomy.com/service/software/

Download manuals: https://player-one-astronomy.com/service/manuals/

Cutting-edge design

Planetary cameras developed by Player One Astronomy use a scientific and technological regular hexagon to construct the main body line, complemented by round chamfers for both rigidity and flexibility. The positive orange, which is implicitly solar, is paired with the low-profile and stable black, and the superfine glazing process on the entire surface makes the camera look luxurious and cool, highlighting the style of high-end players.

2nd Gen - Sensor tilt plate

When taking solar photography with telescope prominence, the Newton's ring is annoying. A smoother solar image could be taken without Newton ring by adjusting the focal plate. Get a much smaller telescope field curvature.

Built-in high density sponge shading pad can block the light from side slits without any side leakage.

Passive cooling system

Solar cameras work in daylight, the temperature can be much higher than at night. Heat from global shutter sensors will be a problem, especially some large format ones like IMX432. Player One adds a new feature called Passive Cooling System to conduct heat from the sensor to the outside.

256M DDR3 Cache

Player One astronomy cameras are the first to incorporate DDR3 cache in all planetary cameras worldwide. It helps stabilize and secure data transmission, effectively prevents dropped frames and greatly reduces read noise.

With DDR3 cache, the camera no longer has high demands on computing needs, it will still have excellent performance even if it is connected to a USB 2.0 port.

DPS technology

The planetary cameras from Player One Astronomy feature DPS (Dead Pixel Suppression) technology. DPS analyzes many dark frames to find the abnormal still pixels and record the map in the camera's memory. In each exposure frame, the dead pixel position is given an average value depending on the active pixels around that abnormal pixel.

Over-voltage and over-current protection mechanism

Player One cameras produced by Number One ensure the safety of your camera and other equipment through overvoltage and overcurrent protection mechanisms.

Data port

When the camera is connected to the USB3.0 interface and full resolution preview is used, it can reach 164 FPS in RAW8 mode (10bit ADC). When recording images, since the actual writing speed will be affected by the writing speed of the hard disk itself, when the writing speed of the hard disk is slow, the recording may not reach the theoretical speed. It is recommended to use a high quality solid state drive to record data in order to take full advantage of the camera's performance.

Use the ST4 guide cable to connect the camera and the AUTO GUIDE port on the equatorial mount for guiding.

Read noise

As for read noise, we solemnly promise that all values are obtained from real tests. And for users, Sharpcap 4 can be used for testing. SC4 has a feature called Sensor Analysis, which provides a very simple way to check read noise.

We have written a tutorial on our website: https://player-one-astronomy.com/service/manuals/

If you are interested in testing read noise, you can try it yourself, which is very simple.

QE curve