The Balor sCMOS platform revolutionizes the field of astronomy by addressing the critical need for high resolution, expansive field of view, and exceptional sensitivity combined with unparalleled speed. Traditional large area CCD technology often falls short in this regard, typically requiring over 40 seconds to readout a single frame while maintaining low noise levels. Balor's innovative design meets these demands by enabling the measurement of photometric and astrometric variability across timescales from milliseconds to tens of seconds, making it an ideal solution for dynamic astronomical applications.

The Balor 17F-12 is equipped with a unique sensor exclusive to Andor, allowing it to achieve an impressive 54 frames per second at full 16.9 MP resolution. Remarkably, it maintains exceptionally low read noise of less than 3 electrons. The large 12 µm pixels provide a substantial well depth, and the on-chip multi-amplifier design ensures that the entire photometric range—from the noise floor to the saturation limit—can be captured in a single image. This capability is ideal for quantifying a wide range of magnitudes.

With a 70mm sensor diagonal, the Balor 17F-12 stands as the largest commercially available sCMOS camera, specifically crafted for 'dynamic astronomy' applications. These include Orbital Debris tracking, Solar Astronomy, Solar System Object detection, Exoplanet Discovery, Atmospheric Studies, and Fast Time Resolution Astrophysics. Furthermore, Balor excels in 'atmospheric freezing' techniques like Lucky/Speckle Imaging, offering resolution enhancement for ground-based astronomy over a significantly larger field of view than what is achievable with adaptive optics alone.