The effect of temperature on CCD's

And a great new way to take quality night shots with your digicam (Nikon Coolpix 990 used for these samples). I've known this for a long time, but didn't explore it with the new 3.3 megapixel digicams. The "dark current" noise increases with temperature. Thanks to Dave Martindale for detailing this, "dark current noise is exponentially related to temperature - it DOUBLES for every 6 or 8 degrees C temperature rise (depending on the CCD)." Taking this practically I took one shot with the camera at room temperature, leaving the camera outside for 20 minutes and took another... the results speak for themselves.

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