Remember that 22-megapixel Sinar camera back from yesterday? Reader Jason Ozolins explains what makes peltier cooling on large CCDs so useful:
I think you’ll find that the Peltier cooler on the Sinar camera back is not used to dissipate lots of internally generated heat (typical “leet overcloxor” use), but to keep the CCD sensor cold, which increases the signal to noise ratio, and allows them to get that incredible 14 usable bits of resolution per colour component.
It’s been done with CCDs since the 1980s by astronomers; back then, making a 200Kpixel CCD was a hugely expensive proposition, so you might as well spend a few thousand more cooling the thing to wring the absolute most information possible out of its images.
22 Megapixel Camera Back from Sinar [Gizmodo]
