Design of Digital Controller for a CCD Camera with Dual-Speed Tracking Imaging on Same Frame

The CCD cameras with high performance have been widely used in astronomical observations.The techniques for observing moving objects or still objects independently are mature.However, when both the moving objects (such as satellites, debris and asteroids)and the still objects (such as stars)are observed at the same time via the same CCD camera, images of one kind of these two objects must be elongated in the most time.In order to solve this problem, we developed a novel imaging technique and a corresponding observation method.The photosensitive areas in some CCD arrays are physically divided into two zones or more.Based on these CCD arrays, our new idea can be implemented one half of the photosensitive area is used to image the still objects in stare mode, and another half to image the moving objects in drift scan mode.It means that both moving objects and still objects can be tracked at the same time without the elongation of their images on the same CCD frame.Thus the new technique is called Dual-Speed Tracking Imaging on Same Frame (DSTIS).This paper briefly introduces the operation principle of the DSTIS CCD camera.After some discussions on the request of a digital controller for the camera, the design philosophy and basic structure of the controller are presented.Then some simulation and testing results are showed, and problems that were encountered during the simulation and testing are analyzed in detail and solved successfully.By the results of the software simulation and hardware testing, the design has been certified correctly.