1 or 3 ccd ???

[Patrick Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Laurence Currie-Clark

The role of the prism is to actually split the image into three exact copies directioned towards the CCDs. In between each CCD and the prism is either a R, G or B filter. In this manner each CCD gets the whole color bandwith.

Whole bandwidth? Not really. Each CCD is ultimately only receiving the light passed through the filter - in essence exactly how a 1CCD + combined RGB filter works.

If the potential to get the whole light spectrum is there, you'd end up sending three exact copies to each CCD and you'll end up with a jumbled mess. R + G + B with exactly the same data doesn't make a pretty image.

All things being equal (testing situation: assert that you have equal glass and equal quality optics AND same size CCD between 1ccd and 3ccd), the only quantitative enhancement of 3ccd over 1ccd+rgb is the possibility for 3 times the digital precision when number crunching. From the look, there's no difference, but the higher datarate allows software (hardware) to do more and be more accurate in its calculations.

[Laurence Currie-Clark]

Sorry, my sentence was poorly composed. I meant to say full color bandwith of each principal color : the "red" CCD would recieve the full red color bandwith, the "green" would etc etc...