To examine the effect of heating up a Basler acA640-100gm on image dark current noise during imaging, I conducted an experiment where I took multiple longer (~2 min) films (conditions: dark room, cap on, constant ambient temperature) with different frame exposure lengths and observed mean image pixel value at the beginning and end of the test. Frame exposure lengths and film durations are approximately equal to the ones used in planetary imaging with this camera and not suitable for DSO imaging.
Image exposure length
With cooler – mean pixel value
Without cooler – mean pixel value
At the beginning of the test
10 ms
17.8
17.5
50 ms
18.1
18.3
500 ms
26.7
26.0
1000 ms = 1 s
44.7
40.1
In the end of the test, after ~2 min when the casing temperature was constant
10 ms
18.1
18.5
50 ms
18.7
19.4
500 ms
32.5
42.4
1000 ms = 1 s
60.6
96.1
Basler camera with attached DIY aluminium cooler (without any fan), salvaged from an older CPU.
The following graphs show, the change of camera casing temperature over time in comparison to the constant ambient temperature. From the plots it is observable that majority of heat up occurs in the first 30 sec of imaging and remains almost constant after that.
