speed



This form allows you to calculate ULTRACAM frame rates to an accuracy of a few per cent. The frame rate is the inverse of the sum of the exposure time and the dead time and depends on a number of parameters, including the number, size, position and binning factors of the windows and the CCD clocking/readout speeds, all of which are variables in the ULTRACAM user interface. The exposure time of an ULTRACAM observation is not as straight-forward a concept as it is for conventional CCD cameras, as it is composed of the time it takes to empty the storage area plus the user-defined exposure delay. The only situation in which the exposure delay is equal to the exposure time is when the full-frame clear or 2-window clear mode of ULTRACAM is being used - for further details, please consult the MNRAS paper, CCD application document and/or the fortran source code.






CCD timing parameters  
   
exposure delay  msecs
readout speed  fast (fbb)      slow (cdd)     
   
ULTRACAM observing mode  
   
full-frame mode without overscan
full-frame mode with overscan
2 windowed mode
4 windowed mode
6 windowed mode
drift mode
   
CCD window parameters  
   
binning in x, y  
window pair 1 - ystart, xsize, ysize, left xstart, right xstart        
window pair 2 - ystart, xsize, ysize, left xstart, right xstart        
window pair 3 - ystart, xsize, ysize, left xstart, right xstart