The RSCC observatory has an SBIG ST-237 CCD camera which is excellent for astrophotography. For several years SBIG has been promoting matching small pixels to short focal length telescopes and camera lenses to achieve wide field CCD images. The earlier SBIG Model ST-5 (Celestron's PixCel 255) achieved much acclaim when used at the f/1.9 prime focus of Celestron's new Fastar SCT telescope. The new Model ST-237 is a new generation CCD imaging camera, with even smaller pixels than the original Model ST-5 and a significantly larger field of view. The camera has 7.4 micron square pixels in an array of 640 x 480 pixels. The very small pixels generate outstanding high resolution images when used with fast focal ratio telescopes, or SBIG's Camera Lens Adapter plus standard camera lenses with focal lengths from 50 to 400 mm. The optical head is 3.25" in diameter and available with a fully integrated color filter wheel mounted inside the CCD head to support tricolor imaging.

The imaging camera communicates with a PC through a standard parallel port and is supported by the same CCDOPS software that controls the other SBIG imaging cameras. The readout electronics utilize a 12 bit A/D converter and double correlated sampling.

The imaging camera system consists of a thermoelectrically cooled CCD head with a cable that connects to a small separate processor. The processor has cables which connect directly to power and the parallel port of a PC. A separate cable connects to the telescope to interface the Autoguider and Track & Accumulate functions.