Player One Mars-C II Colour Camera

The Player One Mars-C II is an uncooled colour astronomy camera built around Sony’s IMX662 sensor. It is a small, fast camera for the planets and the Moon.

The IMX662 replaces the IMX462. Its 2.9 µm pixels each hold up to 54,000 electrons, about four and a half times the older sensor, so bright planets are less likely to saturate. Read noise falls to 0.7 e⁻ at high gain.

The camera runs at 108 frames per second at full resolution, and faster with a smaller region of interest. The pixels are best matched at around f/14. On a Celestron C8 at f/10 the field is about 9.5 × 5.4 arcminutes.

The window is AR-coated, not IR-cut, so add a UV/IR-cut filter for natural colour. Without one, the sensor’s near-infrared response can be used with an IR-pass filter.

It also works for live stacking and as a guide camera. A 256 MB buffer stops dropped frames on a slow laptop, and dark frames show no amp glow.