The Lynxx

SpectraSource's Lynxx camera contains a Texas Instrument TI241 chip and is an array of 165 x 192 pixels, each pixel is approximately 13.75m by 16m. The chip is housed within the camera head which is cooled by a thermoelectric cooler (TEC) to approximately 30 Celsius below the ambient temperature. The pixel size of the Lynxx's chip gives it the capability of very high angular resolution. The atmospheric seeing at Stony Brook does not allow it to be used to its full capability. The oversampling can be useful in some Fourier transform analysis. The Lynxx has a physical shutter creating a uniformly exposed picture. It has a fast image readout time: 1 second for 12 bit, .3 second for 8 bit and real time display. Therefore, Lynxx is better capable of observing asteroids, planets and occultations. Mounted on the Lynxx is a retrofit package that includes a flip mirror and filter box. This allows the observer to see the targets, align them within a square reticle that overlaps the position of the CCD and take an image just by flipping the mirror out of the way. The alignment of the reticled eyepiece does have to be checked periodically. A set of Johnson BVRI filters are used with the Lynxx, and a clear filter is used to maintain the focus on the chip when the BVRI filters are not being used. The filter response curves are given in Appendix III. Undergraduates have used the Lynxx camera for research projects such as; asteroid light curves, periodicity of eclipsing binary stars ( Persei) and variable stars (W UMa). High school students also have used the camera as part of Westinghouse Research projects. These projects have included observations of weather patterns on Saturn, particle size distribution in the early Solar nebula by observing Lunar crater size and density and BVRI photometry of Persei.