The <scp>ORCA</scp> ‐ <scp>TWIN qCMOS</scp> Experiment I. Science Case and Commissioning at Calar Alto Observatory
ABSTRACT We describe a pilot study to explore a new generation of fast and low noise CMOS image sensors for time domain astronomy, using two remote telescopes with a baseline of 1635 km. The experiment involves direct imaging with novel qCMOS image sensor technology that combines fast readout with sub‐electron readout noise. Moreover, synchronized observations from two remote telescope sites will be used to explore new approaches for measuring Solar System bodies, precision stellar photometry, and speckle imaging. A fast‐track installation of an ORCA‐Quest 2 camera at the Calar Alto Observatory 1.23 m telescope has demonstrated the potential of the qCMOS technology for time domain astronomy. Numerical simulations suggest that owing to sub‐electron readout noise, qCMOS sensors outperform classical CCDs for high‐cadence imaging on 1 m‐class telescopes. The small penalty for post‐readout binning, that is almost insignificant in comparison to higher readout noise detectors, opens interesting applications for scene‐dependent data processing in direct imaging, and potentially even for spectroscopy.
Authors
- Fernando Pedichini (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0983-8040)
- S. Cikota (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7671-2317)
- S. Reinhart
- Harry Dawson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-3947-3140)
- S. Geier (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9487-6366)
- Stella Vješnica (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-2318-6015)
- M. Azzaro (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1317-0661)
- M. Kretlow (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8858-3420)
- T. Granzer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5310-1521)
- Thomas Kupfer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6540-1484)
- Martin M. Roth (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2451-739X)
- Gianluca Li Causi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9539-2112)
- J. L. Ortiz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8690-2413)
- Katja Poppenhäger
- C. Denker
- Samaya Nissanke
- A J Brown
- J Aceituno
- Torsten Enßlin
- Paško Roje
- Axel Schwope
Institutions
- Texas Tech University (US)
- University of Potsdam (DE)
- University of Zagreb (HR)
- Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (DE)
- Astronomical Observatory of Rome (IT)
- Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY (DE)
- Calar Alto Observatory (ES)
- Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (DE)
- Hamburg Institut (Germany) (DE)
- Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (ES)
- National Institute for Astrophysics (IT)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Astronomische Nachrichten
- Published
- 2026-07-26
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/asna.70110
- Primary Topic
- CCD and CMOS Imaging Sensors
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- European Commission
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Projektträger Jülich