Player One Zeus-M Pro mono astro camera with Sony IMX455 sensor D=43.3 mm

Player One Zeus-M Pro mono astro camera with Sony IMX455 full frame sensor

Cutting-edge Design
Polygon like regular hexagon is very Player One. After a lot of trying, the final style uses a scientific and technological octagon to construct the main body line and 4 sides are cambered surface, supplemented by round chamfers to achieve both rigidity and flexibility. The front piece is round to avoid diffraction on RASA. The positive red, which is like a summer fire, is matched with the low-key and steady black, and the super-fine frosting process on the entire surface makes the camera look luxurious and cool, and keep Player One style.
Zeus-M Pro (IMX455) cooled camera is developed by Player One Astronomy, it is designed for advanced DSO imaging. it adopts Sony IMX455 full frame monochrome sensor. The 3.76 µm pixel size accommodates a well depth of 71.6 ke with a total of 62 MP (the resolution is 9576×6388), and the diagonal is 43.3 mm.

Rear Adjustment 4 Point Sensor Tilt Plate
The rear Adjustment 4 point tilt plate has a lot advantages in usage. With 4 Point adjustment is easier to know which corner has to be adjusted. The built-in high-density sponge shading pad can block the light from the side slits without any side leakage.







Cooling
The camera has a 2-stage TEC cooling unit with which the sensor can be cooled down to 35 °C below ambient temperature.

512MB DDR3 Cache
As an improvement, DDR3 cache in cooled cameras are increased to 512MB. It helps stabilize and secure data transmission, it effectively avoids frame dropping and greatly reduces readout noise.
With the DDR3 cache, the camera does not have high demands on computing needs any longer, it will still has excellent performance even if it is connected to a USB 2.0 port.

STARVIS Technology
Zeus-M Pro (IMX455) cooled camera based on Sony STARVIS technology, it is back-illuminated pixel technology used in CMOS image sensors.

Full Frame
Zeus-M Pro cooled camera has a full frame sensor (36 mm * 24 mm), this size is quite big for DSO imaging.

Native 16bit ADC
IMX455 sensor has native 16-bit on-chip ADC. Native 16bit ADC (65536 levels) provide higher sample resolution than 12bit (4096 levels) or 14bit (16384 levels). When we do non-linear transformation, 16bit data can endure very strong transform and also could bring much better light and dark transition.

Non-Amp-Glow
Zeus-M Pro cooled camera is a Non-Amp-Glow camera too. Non-Amp-Glow can give us very clean background, much easier to get high quaility images.

Type-C Data port and Power port
Back piece of cooled camera has 2 Type-C data port and 12V DC 5.5×2.1 mm power port. Main data port support USB 3.0 protocol, the camera can run 15 fps under RAW8 mode. Type-C port is easier to plug in when assemble the imaging equipment in night.
When recording images, since the actual writing speed will be affected by the writing speed of the hard disk itself, when the hard disk writing speed is slow, the recording may not reach the theoretical speed. It is recommended that you use a high-quality solid state drive to record data to give full play to the performance of the camera.
The camera has 12 V DC5.5*2.1 mm port to provide enough power to TEC cooling system. If you do not need to power up cooling, only need to connect the main Type-C port, the camera will works as a uncooled camera.

Cooling System and Anti-Dew Heater
There are 3 adjustable parameters: Target temperature, Fan Speed and Anti-Dew power.
Standard Delta-T: 35 °C (±2 °C) , when ambient temp 30 °C, fan speed 100%, dew heater 10%.
Recommend Delta-T settings: 35 °C below ambient, fan speed 70%, dew heater 10%, power consumption 40- 60%.
The rotation speed of cooling fan is also adjustable, the default value is 70% speed.
Dew problem is the biggest enemy in astro imaging, the camera integrated anti-dew heater in front of the camera. The heat power is adjustable.

Overvoltage and overcurrent protection mechanism
Player One cameras ensure the safety of your camera and other equipment through overvoltage and overcurrent protection mechanisms

Dual Sampling Mode
Zeus series has dual sampling mode. Normal mode and Low Noise mode, they has different advantages in imaging.
1. Normal mode has faster FPS, it is more suitable for planetary imaging.
2. Low Noise mode (LRN) mode has lower readout noise and higher dynamic range. it is more suitable for DSO imaging.
At gain=0, the camera has 14.2 stops dynamic range and 71.6 ke full well capacity, readout noise is 4.2 e.
HCG open at gain=125, the camera has 13.5 stops dynamic range and 16.7 ke full well, readout noise drop to only 1.5 e.

Readout Noise
Regarding readout noise, all values are obtained from actual tests. And for users, you could use Sharpcap 4 for testing. SharpCap4 has a function called Sensor Analysis, provide a very simple way to test readout noise.

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

Dark Current
The dark current is only 0.00014 e/s/pix at -20 °C, and 0.00154 e/s/pix at 0°C. In entire curve, dark current is almost like a straght a line, which can prove that Zeus camera has very good quality.

Camera and Metal Cover
M54M-M54F Extender 17.5 mm
M54M-M54F Extender 20 mm
M54M-M48F Adapter
Air Blower
Type-C to Type-A 2M USB 3.2 Cable
Type-C to Type-C 0.5M USB 2.0 Cable
Type-C to Type-B 0.5M USB 2.0 Cable
2 mm Hexagonal Wrench and 8 M2.5*5 screws
Cable Tie
Camera Bag

Safety informations: PDF Download