CCD detector Sony ICX285AL, used in the G1-1400 camera, is well know by its high sensitivity and low noise among astronomers. While its ceramic package is substantially bigger compared to other Sony ICX CCD chips of the similar size, which usually leads to bigger camera body, G1-1400 camera dimensions were kept the same like other G1 cameras. Also other features like low weight, connection through single USB cable (G1-1400, as well as other cameras of this series, is powered from the host PC over USB cable) and overall easy operation are the same.

G1-1400 cameras are offered in monochrome as well as color variants:

Image digitization speed can be choses between 2.5 MPx/s and 8 MPx/s. The whole image can be downloaded in a fraction of second, which is particularly important for automatic guider. Analog/Digital converter resolution is 16 bits (65,536 levels), so camera electronics dynamic range fully covers CCD detector dynamic range.

The CCD detector is equipped with electronic shutter, which allows capturing of very short exposures (shortest exposure is 125 μs). Longest exposure is on the other side limited only by the detector saturation, which allows automatic guiding using much dimmer stars compared to the best web or TV cameras. When coupled with a guiding telescope with focal length around 50 or 75 cm and diameter around 10 cm, G1-1400 can detect guiding star after several seconds of exposure time almost anywhere on the night sky.

As well as other cameras of this series also the G1-1400 is equipped with standard “autoguider” port. This port allows direct connection of camera and telescope mount compatible with this standard, introduced by SBIG. The G1-1400 camera has mount switching circuits isolated from the rest of the system (camera itself, USB and host computer), which enhances reliability and noise resistance.

The guiding itself is performed by the SIMS (Simple Image Manipulation System) software or by other camera control software, for which G1 camera driver exists (e.g. MaxIm DL or AstroArt). Automatic guiding running in SIMS utilizes the computational power of modern PCs to achieve sub-pixel precision of star position, so it can guide the very precisely even if a guiding telescope with short focal length is used.

SIMS software performs not only guiding, but also allows automatic calibration independently on camera orientation, recalculates calibration parameters when the telescope is moved to different declination so no calibration is needed, can keep the guide star on defined pixel coordinates, which allows keeping of the guide star on the same position during subsequent observations etc. Differences from ideal positions are displayed graphically and all guiding actions including measured differences and performed corrections are logged into text window and can be saved into text file.