SVBony
SVBony SV405CC
A cooled 4/3 inch sensor with unusually large pixels, which is the combination that frames big nebulae whole through a short refractor. The wide-field answer where the SV605CC is the tight one.
82/ 100
Camera Type
PlanetaryDeep sky
Built for wide-field deep sky. A 4/3 inch sensor with 4.63 micron pixels wants a short fast refractor, and at 19 frames per second it is the wrong instrument for planetary work entirely.
Type
One-shot colour
Cooling
Regulated TEC
Pixel Size
4.63µm
Read noise
1.2 e⁻
Resolution
11.7 MP · 4144×2822
Sensor
Sony IMX294 · 4/3 inch
From$665.99
Lowest in 90 days
Price tracked by PolarisObserved 45 timesTracking since Sep 2026
The frame it captures
Same camera. Different telescope. A completely different photograph.
A camera has no field of view of its own — the telescope in front of it decides everything. Pick a target and watch the same 11.7-megapixel frame become three different images.
Framed with space to spare — the full disc and both companions.
Overflows the frame — the outer arms extend past the edges.
Only the bright core fits; the spiral arms spill off the sensor.
01What it's good atWhat it's best at — and the trade-offs.
A 19.2 by 13 millimetre sensor frames the large emission nebulae that a 1 inch chip crops, which is the single most common regret of a first cooled camera.
01What it's good at
What it's best at — and the trade-offs.
A 19.2 by 13 millimetre sensor frames the large emission nebulae that a 1 inch chip crops, which is the single most common regret of a first cooled camera.
Best at
✓A 19.2 by 13 millimetre sensor frames the large emission nebulae that a 1 inch chip crops, which is the single most common regret of a first cooled camera.
✓4.63 micron pixels are large by modern standards, so at 300 to 500 mm of focal length the image scale lands in a sensible range instead of oversampling.
✓63,000 electrons of full well depth is deep, which means bright stars in a rich field take much longer to saturate into white blobs.
✓Regulated cooling plus a 14-bit converter is the pairing that makes calibration frames repeatable, and repeatable calibration is most of what separates a clean stack from a noisy one.
Trade-offs
!A 23.2 millimetre diagonal demands a genuinely flat corrected field. Many budget refractors will vignette or show elongated corner stars without a matched flattener.
!Peak quantum efficiency around 75 percent is respectable and sits below the 90 percent the newer back-illuminated square sensors reach.
!At 4.63 microns the pixels undersample at long focal lengths, so this is a short-scope camera and awkward beyond about 800 mm.
!Needs a 12 volt supply for the cooler, which is one more thing to power in the field.
02In plain EnglishThe numbers, in plain English.
Sony IMX294 · 11.7MP · 4.63µm · Regulated TEC
02In plain English
The numbers, in plain English.
Sony IMX294 · 11.7MP · 4.63µm · Regulated TEC
Sensor sizeLarge
19.2 × 13.0 mm
This is the specification you are actually buying. A 4/3 inch sensor covers roughly twice the area of a 1 inch chip, and sensor area is what decides whether a large nebula fits in the frame. At 400 mm of focal length this sees about 2.7 by 1.9 degrees, enough to hold the whole North America Nebula with sky around it. The cost is that everything in front of it must be corrected out to a 23 millimetre diagonal.
Pixel sizeLarge
4.63 µm
Pixel size sets image scale together with focal length, and larger pixels collect more photons each. At 4.63 microns behind a 400 mm scope you sample at 2.4 arcseconds per pixel, which is a sensible match for typical seeing rather than a waste of resolution. Behind a 2000 mm SCT the same pixels sample at 0.5 arcseconds and you are simply making bigger files.
Read noiseLow
1.2 e⁻
Read noise is the penalty the camera charges every time it reads the sensor, and it decides how short your subframes can usefully be. At 1.2 electrons the noise floor is low enough that three-minute exposures under a moderately bright sky are already sky-limited, which means longer subs would gain you almost nothing and only risk more of them to satellites and wind.
Full wellDeep
63,000 e⁻
Full well is how much charge a pixel holds before it saturates and the star becomes a featureless white disc. Sixty three thousand electrons is deep, and it is the quiet reason wide-field images from this camera keep star colour: in a rich Milky Way field a shallow sensor blows out the bright stars long before the faint nebulosity has registered.
CoolingPresent and regulated
Regulated TEC
Cooling suppresses thermal noise, which doubles roughly every six degrees. The part that matters more than the depth of cooling is that it is regulated to a set point: a camera held at a fixed temperature lets you reuse a library of dark frames for months, and calibration you do not have to redo each session is most of the practical benefit of a cooled camera.
Bit depthStandard for deep sky
14-bit ADC
Bit depth is how finely the analogue signal is sliced into numbers. Fourteen bits gives 16,384 levels, which combined with a deep full well is enough to hold both a faint nebula and a bright star in the same frame without either being crushed. Twelve bits, common on planetary cameras, would visibly band a stretched deep-sky image.
03Typical targetsWhat it shines on.
The North America Nebula, The Orion Nebula (M42), The Heart Nebula, The Pleiades (M45), The…
03Typical targets
What it shines on.
The North America Nebula, The Orion Nebula (M42), The Heart Nebula, The Pleiades (M45), The…
04Build your imaging rigEverything you'd actually buy.
Capture · Track · Filter it
04Build your imaging rig
Everything you'd actually buy.
Capture · Track · Filter it
Capture
What forms the image
A 250 to 500 mm apo refractor
The focal length range where 4.63 micron pixels and a 4/3 inch field both make sense.
A matched field flattener
Not optional at this sensor size. A 23 mm diagonal will expose any curvature in the field as elongated corner stars.
Track
What holds it steady
A tracking equatorial mount
Cooling only pays off in exposures of minutes, and minutes require accurate tracking.
SVBony SV106 50mm Guide Scope
At 190 mm it guides a short imaging refractor comfortably, which is exactly the class of scope this camera wants.
05The Polaris ScoreHow it scores, and why.
82/100 · #4 of 9 cooled colour deep-sky cameras
05The Polaris Score
How it scores, and why.
82/100 · #4 of 9 cooled colour deep-sky cameras
82/ 100
SVBony SV405CC
#4 of 9 cooled colour deep-sky cameras
Scored as a wide-field cooled colour camera. It earns its place on sensor area, pixel size and well depth, all of which serve the short-focal-length imaging it is built for. It is held back by the demands it places on the optics in front of it, and by a modest peak quantum efficiency next to the newer square sensors.
Image quality85
Low-light sensitivity87
Ease of use75
Value86
Polaris weighs how well the camera does the job it was designed for — image quality, sensitivity, versatility and value — never list price or brand.
06Who it's forAn honest fit check.
Imagers working at 250 to 500 mm of focal length who keep finding their target runs past…
06Who it's for
An honest fit check.
Imagers working at 250 to 500 mm of focal length who keep finding their target runs past…
Buy it if you
✓Imagers working at 250 to 500 mm of focal length who keep finding their target runs past the edge of the frame.
✓Anyone photographing the large summer and winter emission nebulae, which are the targets that most reward sensor area.
✓Someone upgrading from a 1 inch or APS-C uncooled camera who wants the field to grow and the noise to fall in the same purchase.
Look elsewhere if you
!Planetary imagers, who need hundreds of frames per second from a small sensor, not nineteen from a large one.
!Owners of long focal length Schmidt-Cassegrains, where a 4/3 inch sensor at 2000 mm both oversamples and demands a corrected field most SCTs cannot deliver.
!Anyone imaging through a telescope without a well corrected flat field, because a 23 millimetre diagonal will show you every optical flaw in the corners.
!Galaxy specialists, who want small pixels and long focal length rather than a wide field and coarse sampling.
07The numbersFull specifications.
19 measured and stated values
07The numbers
Full specifications.
19 measured and stated values
Sensor
ModelSony IMX294
TypeCMOS · 4/3 inch back-illuminated
Megapixels11.7
Pixel Size4.63µm
Bit depth14-bit ADC
Noise & sensitivity
Read noise1.2 e⁻
Full well63,000 e⁻
Peak QE~75%
Cooling
CoolingRegulated TEC
Connectivity & fit
InterfaceUSB 3.0 Type-B · 256 MB DDR3 buffer
More
cooledtrue
exposure range0.05 ms to 2000 s
max frame rate19 fps at full resolution
power12 V, not included
Sensor Height13.0mm
Sensor Width19.2mm
Editor’s Take
Most people buy their second astronomy camera because of framing, not noise. The first cooled camera produces perfectly good images of objects that fit, and then you point it at the North America Nebula and get a third of it. This is the camera that fixes that specific disappointment, and the price of fixing it is that your optics now have to be honest all the way out to the corners. If your refractor has a matched flattener and you image between 250 and 500 mm, the extra sensor area is the most visible upgrade available at this money. If it does not, buy the flattener first.
— The Skynocular verdict
08AlternativesFor a different goal, start here.
2 alternatives, each mapped to the goal it wins at
08Alternatives
For a different goal, start here.
2 alternatives, each mapped to the goal it wins at
