QHY9 first light

[multiweb]

Finally the clouds stayed put long enough for me to have a crack at anything with my QHY9. The moon is up and blazing so Ha it was.

Love the extra res and improved image scale. It's refreshing to see all the details not being hacked in 4 by debayering.

I did 10x5min on M16/17, M8/20 and also the LMC which was very low just above my neighbourg roof above the M5/M7 junction so I wasn't expecting much but I'm stoked and really surprised that I got some data regardless.

I wouldn't have captured anything even close to what I got that night with the QHY8 as far a SNR goes with the moon. The new sensor seems a bit noisier but also much more sensitive and with longer subs and more of them I'm sure I would have got a lot less noise. I also did Dark subtraction from a previous library and flat fielding on the night without any problem. The camera was very easy to focus from Maxim and image capture was also fairly straight forward. I only ever used Nebulosity before.

Large M8/20 is here (http://www.astropic.net/astro/M8_ha_200mm_ff.jpg) [1.4MB]
Large M16/17 is here (http://www.astropic.net/astro/M16_ha_200mm_ff.jpg)[1.2MB] and
Large LMC is here (http://www.astropic.net/astro/LMC_ha_200mm_ff.jpg)[1.3MB]

Excuse the framing, I just pointed and shot real quick just in case those damn clouds came back like last time :P

The lens was the SMC Pentax-M 200mm fully open. I captured with MaximDL and guided with PHD. Still have to work out the guiding in Maxim so I stuck to what I know works. The TEC was set to -20c.

PS: on the test focus shot of Rigil Kent I have a black line during readout. It's got something to do with 'clamping' to tick on or off in the Ascom driver dialog box for the cam. Haven't worked that one out yet. Next session. I read it only happens on bright stars.

[Alchemy]

Ah I have been waiting for the first images, looks like it's all working well for you, going to have to pick LMC as my favorite, so many interesting Ha areas.
Looking forward to doing some of this Ha mono type images myself..... One day. ..... Soon perhaps.

Clive

[RobF]

Great stuff Marc. I didn't realise you were still struggling to get the 9 out. That dark line was a problem with older drivers. Have you got the most recent one from the QHY site? For those the recommendation is now to leave clamping off and use normal speed download (most people tick "hold USB during download" or whatever the heck it says exactly)

Isn't it great when you can just keep zooming in down to the very last pixel on a mono camera :)

[batema]

Hi Marc,
They all look great. Is it possible to show me or tell me how you attach the QHY-9 to the lens as I have the same camera and would love to be able to attach a lens to it. Well done as usual. Great stuff.

Mark

[Alchemy]

Being as it's your first foray into this camera, how did you go with calibrating the gain and offset?
I note your comment on the noise, it doesn't appear to show up here particularly, perhaps if the chip is more sensitive one should also expect a similar increase in noise.
Did you do the full calibration? Bias, flats, etc

[g__day]

I'm impressed!

[desler]

Fantastic Marc!

I'm not sure about the clamping tick box, I just know that if there is a bright star in the field, it generally pays to turn it off, However, having said that, I don't really see any difference in operation with it on or off. Maybe some of the more familiar folk can fill us in.

Very exciting times ahead!

Darren

[gregbradley]

Congrats Marc.

The KAF8300 chip is one of the great imaging chips and is probably the most popular choice at the present.

Greg.

[multiweb]

Thanks Clive. The LMC is real fun in Ha. This one is pretty bad because it was so low, probably 15 degrees. I was very surprised to pick anything at all but I wanted to check the image scale and field with the tarantula. I know for a fact that the QHY8 wouldn't have picked up anything for sure because I have been trying in similar circumstances in the past and got nothing workable.


Thanks Rob. I'm not sure which driver I have. I'm pretty sure it's the one from the QHYCCD website of maybe the one Theo sent me on the CD. Will double check. I use normal speed download. Will check all the other settings.


Thanks Mark. I remove the front nosepiece and I have an adapter M42 on one end and a Pentax bayonnet system on the other (K-mount). It's approx 15mm long. You can reach focus easily. You can get those adapters from eBay for a couple of bucks. There are heaps to choose from for all popular brands: Nikon, Canon, Pentax, etc...


I'll have to double check the gain and offset but I 'm sure I used Gain:1 and I think Offset:60. Will confirm the Offset, could be a tad higher.

I thought it was a bit noisier from what I'm used to with the 8. Now thinking about it maybe it's because the picture is so much sharper. When I do Ha with the 8 and debayer I get 1 only pixel in 4 then resample to native res so you're right, that would smooth things out a lot and blur all the background noise, including data.



Thanks Matt. :thumbsup: Hope you're getting better and plenty of rest.

Thanks Darren. I'll keep all that in mind next session and do some more testing. Yeah I can't wait to get back out there and experiment a bit more. :)

[multiweb]

Thanks Greg. I know why now. Its small size and smaller pixels. I like it.

[Lester]

Very nice first light Marc. It almost makes me want a mono CCD too.

[mill]

Hi Mark.

It is clamping off and no usb during readout.
Also set the pedestal to 100 in the ascom driver.

Nice pics by the way :)

[multiweb]

Thanks Lester. C'mon... you know you want one. ;)


Thanks Martin. Will try that. :thumbsup:

[atalas]

Very exciting Marc!congrats.

[multiweb]

Yes it is. Thanks mate. :thumbsup:

[Ross G]

Hi Marc,

The initial shots look great.....I think we will see some amazing photos from you once you get this camera working at full speed.

Good luck.

Thanks.

Ross.

[multiweb]

Thanks mate. :thumbsup: Very happy with the cam so far. It's working great.

Here's another one I did last night. The seeing was very average not that it matters too much at that FL but it was a little windy at ground level.

I tried to guide with Maxim this time with the QHY5 as an ascom camera. I tried the GBUSB for the mount but it didn't seem to work very well so I set it to the gemini ascom driver and it did guide for a while. Gotta rtfm. Another learning curve. :P

There's a bigger field here (http://www.astropic.net/astro/IC4628_ha_200mm_ff.jpg)[1.3MB].

[gregbradley]

Very nice Marc. You've gotta be pleased with that.

Greg.

[multiweb]

I would if I didn't have to throw half of the subs and all the subs I did on the LMC. The guiding stopped. Maybe faulty cable. Trying again tonight.

[Omaroo]

Jeepers - I tried my QHY9 after months in a box last night. Seriously noisy - and I was at both -25C and -30C. So much noise its ridiculous!

This is a 600 sec shot in Ha with an auto dark!

What have I forgotten after so long away? Were you getting this Marc?

[multiweb]

That does look a bit noisy but NGC6357 is quite faint. Maybe you've got your gain set too high? I used gain 12% and offset 110 in the ascom QHY9 setup box. Pedestal 88.

[Omaroo]

Ta. I'll give those values a go and then try EZcap 2.41 to see if I get a different result to Maxim tonight.

[marki]

This is not normal. Make sure your power cable between the controller and camera is plugged in the right way. The EMC ring should be on the DC102 side not the camera side. If reversed you will get lots of noise.

Cheers

Mark

[Alchemy]

Thats looking good Marc. Umm chris... Not so good.

Marki care to explain what an emc ring is?

Good luck with it all, you can make all the mistakes so I don't have to :D, will watch your progress with interest.

[multiweb]

That's interesting. Will keep this in mind. I always had it the right way but it's pure luck. Never thought much about it.

So I assume it acts like a ferrite block on USB lines? Having said that on USB lines would you have the blocks closer to the cam or hub or doesn't matter?

[multiweb]

Post yours here too with your settings. Between us three we're bound to get it right. :)

[Alchemy]

I've only got as far as bolting it to the scope, I calibrated it , though my settings are way different than yours I got 20 gain and 80 offset, I'm happy that that is correct so once I get some decent skies. It's clear here but blowing a gale. Rain due in a couple of hours so it will be days before I get a chance.

[Omaroo]

The cable has always been correct Mark.

time to go through the darned cal exercise.

[RickS]

Those EMC suppression lumps are ferrite beads. It's a few coils of wire over a ferrite core and acts as a low pass filter, removing high frequency noise. You normally position them at the end where the nasty stuff is coming from to prevent it radiating as well as to clean whatever is coming over the cable. In the case of USB cameras I'm not sure if the concern is radiated EMC, noise going in or noise coming out (the camera will probably contain a DC to DC converter which could generate noise).

As a software guy who works with electrical engineers my tongue in cheek view is that ferrite beads are a kludge to get around poor hardware design :lol:

Cheers,
Rick.

[multiweb]

Thanks for the info Rick. :thumbsup: I have always used ferrite blocks on my USB lines. It helped during camera readout with the QHY8. I used to get little wide dots in the picture immediately followed by a dark line.

With the QHY9 I still get this kind of artefact but only on very bright objects. Last night I framed the HH and Orion on 5min exposures with a 200mm lens. Just fits the whole thing nicely. Obviously I did burn the core as I wanted to get some of the neb in between the HH and M42. The core values are well over saturation. I had the clamping off but it still came out with a dark shade in the direction of the read out left of the neb. See attached. I don't know if it's a driver issue at this stage.

[Alchemy]

Ah now i know what an EMC is...... All grist for the mill.

Desperately hoping tonight will clear so I can get out, keep that technical info coming!!

[RickS]

My SX H-18 was producing dark lines on one side (readout side?) of bright stars when binned x2. The fix was to turn down the gain. Unlike the QHY cameras this is a physical trim pot on the H-18.

Cheers,
Rick.

[multiweb]

Good stuff Rick. :thumbsup: I'll play with the gain settings again and report back.

[marki]

If you look at the S video cable that comes with the QHY CCD camera's it has a lump (for want of a better word) towards one end. It must be plugged into the DC102 not the camera end. When I got it wrong there was a lot of noise in the subs (similar to Chris's pic).

Marc try taking a short 1 - 2 sec exposure before the long exposure. I have had that line happen a couple of times on bright objects and short exposure between long exposures seems to get rid of it for me.

Cheers

Mark

[Alchemy]

Testing has begun, gain 20 and offset 80
According to the calibration proceedure this was the setting BUT having just tried a 10 min exposure on ngc253, all the dim details are missing .... Which suggests offset too low perhaps.

Trying with offset at 100

Back soon

Ok back with the 100 offset and much more faint detail has emerged. Will try 90, 110 and 120 to see what happens.... Yep very technical ..... But I tried the proper way and it's wrong.

Interesting point, I stacked a single frame in deep sky stacker, settings in fits needed to be unpicked, it saves as a gray file, I imported to Photoshop and immediately converted to adobe rgb profile.... Photoshop couldn't cope with working in gray.

Love the resolution this thing has wow.

[marki]

I have mine set at Gain = 15, Offset = 115 if that helps. Below is a 5 min Ha test shot of M8 through a 98mm refractor in heavy LP. No processing just a dark subtraction and autoscale in CCDstack.

[Alchemy]

Ok done shots now at 80 100 and 110
Very interesting to pull the fits file into deepskystacker, use the sliders to set the histogram BEFORE stacking , flick between exposures and effects of offset is obvious . 110 is waaaay too much .

Will do a 90... Oh and yes 80 toooooo low.

Back to testing

[Alchemy]

Thanks marki, I tried the u beaut method for calibrating, I got full wells at 17 gain, but they suggested to allow a few % more to allow for non linear responses so 20 it was, I think qui suggests 20 as a good place for beginners anyway.

I'm narrowing it down to somewhere between 80 and 100 will see how it goes. I guess with varying gains the offsets will be different.

Oh thanks for the explanation of the lump on the cable.:thumbsup:

[Alchemy]

Ok 90 too low as well

To those struggling with the offset pulling it into DSS is working a treat.:)

Actually pulling the fits files into maxim is helping too, star centers peaking at about 62300 so I reckon I can up gain by one notch.
Whew glad we've got clear skies, could be a while tinkering. The hiatogram in maxim also shows a min value of 900 for all pixels so offset must be about right....... Errr maybee.

[marki]

I used to set mine at gain = 3 and offset = 120 on the old power board. When this was replaced (my fault) and the camera returned it calibrated best to the levels I use now 15 and 115 respectively. So there is going to be lots of differences between individual cameras if the same camera can vary so much. On my current settings min = 450ADU and max = 65480 ADU which is about as good a dynamic range as I am going to get. Interesting that you were told to lift the gain above saturation, I have always been told to stay just below it so you have the max dynamic range with the min noise.

Mark

[Alchemy]

Mark I followed this http://www.cool.id.au/astronomy/Neb_tut/Scientifically%20determining%20CCD% 20Gain%20and%20Offset.pdf
However it didn't quite work ... Might be me, but it did hive me a good understanding of how the gain and offset really worked, the PDF suggested an increase so :shrug:
Anyway just trying a 21 gain and 100 offset yuen I will head back into the cols and target a bright star just at 100 just to make sure wells are full.

The interesting thing is wells will be full and without the gain it might have a value of 52000, you can keep exposing but it won't get to 53000. So my understanding is get that value right up to 65 odd thousand to maximize your range, looks like you've got yours bang on. Won't take me long and I will be there.

Might head off the magellanic clouds for some Ha exposures after this 20 mins I'm hoping as subs .

[Alchemy]

Well after much fluffing around, Gain 22 offset 106 THATS IT. ( I hope )
Gives me 6-700 low values and a smudge over 65000 for star cores, I did a line profile in maxim and the stars are flat topped so it's maxxed out.

I did a quick stack of all the calibration efforts and it came up pretty good, don't know what all the fuss about noise is it's as smoooooooth as and that's with no flats darks etc... There are hot pixels sprinkled around but with a median combine and some dithering ( ok tracking errors;) )all gone. What a cracker camera.

Oh if there's some weird words.... It's got auto spell and it gets a bit strange if you miss them.

Just enough time for a 20 min Ha shot on 253 before the meridian, then off to

[marki]

I use this method, works a treat: http://www.stark-labs.com/blog/files/GainAndOffset.php. They are a good camera, hope you enjoy using it.

Mark

[Alchemy]

Thanks for the read mark..... It's all starting to do my head in tonight. I have it more or less sorted, will do further testing tomorrow during the day.
Going to do some lazy imaging around the tarantula, I want to see how it handles the brightness, 10 min exposures, all on auto now

Goodnight. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Alchemy]

From last night. No flats, no darks, no bias, etc, bunch of 8x10 min frames of various settings whilst testing http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-XcjP2skWgK0/Tn1xhlJ3coI/AAAAAAAAABE/Ahe7wS7GnMk/s1024/11%203:58:07%20PM

Gain 22 offset 106..... For now.

My scope setup http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-4KpjmV4j2iQ/Tn1_ddLsOOI/AAAAAAAAABI/tGJ6R4zd1j0/s1024/11%204:57:10%20PM

[marki]

Looks good Clive, love to see it when you add the colour subs.

Cheers

Mark

[Alchemy]

That wont happen I'm afraid, shots are all different settings, doing a calibration routine wouldn't be accurate, so probably the last you will see for a bit.
Of note.....

Under the Perspex cap that covers the filterwheel lights, where the wires go inside there is a small hole ... A potential light leak. I have had correspondence regarding this and solutions. Suffice to say it's no longer an issue, some early short exposures indicated a leaking problem.

Also, if you are using the proprietary imaging program by qui just check that doing a planner table run gives you exactly the same results as to the capture settings to the left.... I'm only using the planner table now as that's how I will image, as it automatically saves the FITS file. The one from just the capture side seemed brighter.... Didn't check it too thoroughly so look for yourselves.

Have shot Bias frames and some darks last night, will do flats this afternoon followed by dark flats depending on exposure time. I have heard you need at least 2 sec flats due to shutter..... CONFIRM ????????

[multiweb]

Looks great. Beautiful details. :thumbsup:

[multiweb]

Well I spent all day yesterday dicking around with QHY drivers. With the rain and all had nothing better to do :P. The QHY camera's aren't half bad but man... the software is appaling :rolleyes:. I ended up doing a clean install on a brand new WinXP32 HD. The idea is to swap drives around when I need to image with the QHY8/5 combo or the QHY9/5 combo.

Older Nebulosity 2 and TVDEE drivers is what I'm used to with the old system. It's flawless and still works today so I won't change it.

Now with the QHY9 I need to use Maxim as Nebulosity TEC control is a bit iffy. Also it will only work as an ASCOM camera. Same for the 8 and the 5. The newest drivers for the 8 and the 5 are such a huge step backward from the older ones. I couldn't believe how dodgy the interfaces are and don't get me started on the install. They don't even mix with the old ones (conflicts). The removal tools don't work as advertised either. What a load of tripe. :lol:

Anyway I have two separate HD laptop images now on two separate drives. I also have the Hitec Astro Hub working in the middle. This thing is great for power and USB. Saves so much headaches and cables. Love it. :thumbsup:

[Marke]

Marc are you using the Sense drivers ? I dont know how different the qhy9
drivers are to the 10 but i have had no issues on either win7 x64 or Win7 32 on the netbook. Maxim, image plus , exycap ect all work perfectly
with the camera .

[multiweb]

Yes I did use the StarSenseSci Drivers for the 8 only. I couldn't find native drivers for the 9, only ascom by Tom Libs. The 5 won't connect in PHD unless it's an ascom camera as well with the QHY USB drivers and Tom's ascom driver. I got all the drivers from the QHYCCD download page.

To my knowledgde the latest nebulosity doesn't even read the 5,8 or 9 directly with QHY drivers. Only ascom works for me. (on the new imaged laptop)

As previously stated drivers don't mix and match either (base drivers are incompatible). What are you running for your system now? Got a 5?

[Marke]

Marc I am using a Loadstar with PHD with no probs there and I use latest
version of Image capture with the QHY10 Sense V2 drivers and Ascom 6 on a Vaio with Win7 . I am able to set the temp in Image capture thru the QHY ascom driver and it works without issue , so does maxim and pempro
and any other software I have tried . I havent trieb Neb tho but I cant see why not ? What is the AstroSoftBe qhy9 ascom driver ? have you looked at that

[multiweb]

I woudn't know about the 10. Yes I have a SX lodestar as well that PHD/Neb/Maxim detect natively. No need for Ascom.


Yes this is the Ascom driver for the 9 that I connect to maxim and neb with. I don't think there is a Maxim driver for the 9. I have one for the 8 and the 5 on the older HD image though.

PS: I use Ascom 6 too.

[Marke]

Maybe win xp is part of the problem with managing the drivers ?

[multiweb]

Could be but you don't need a big machine nor fast to run a capture program and a guiding program.

Everything else works too. Starlight Xpress, Imaging source. No drama.

QHY drivers have gone downhill from what I see when I compare them to the legacy drivers and ease of use. The hardware is good and long lasting but let down by the software side of it and that's impacting on the overall product.

Still worked around it. With great pain I might add :lol:

[Marke]

Still worked around it. With great pain I might add :lol:[/QUOTE]

Thats true but Win7 does a much better job of juggling drivers and resources regardless of the machine running it . You may gave be having issues with Win xp and its handling of the drivers . If possible you should
give win7 a try .

It is a pain and I dont envy the way you have to manage it , lets hope
for your sake better driver support for the 9 :thumbsup:

[marki]

Clive I use MaximDL and a fingerlakes filterwheel so have no problems in that respect. Try to get you flat exposures in the 3 - 5 second range so you avoid shutter artifacts, its a bit slow unfortunately.

Mark

[marki]

Gee Marc and you are a computer guy ;). Like Marke I use 64 bit win 7 and everything just installed first go with no problems what so ever. The Ascom drivers make it easy to control the camera across a number of imaging platforms and and I run both my 9 and 5 through these drivers in Maxim and they just work. Once setup you dont even know they are there. In some of the old versions of driver you had to manually place the dll files in the maxim folder. Now its just a double click and it does it all for you. I have also used the removal tool on my old laptop (vista 32) with no probs at all but it never worked well for me on XP but niether did the camera or serial port drivers etc etc (time to upgrade mate, XP is dead :P). You cannot get the starsense sci drivers for the QHY 9 as they dont exist and in any case they are just a re-wrapped 64 bit version but Qui put the starsense label to make a complete break from Tom who could not keep up with the fine tuning needed for existing cams as well as writing new drivers for the new cams coming on line due to his work commitments.

PS told you the Mount Hub Pro was a winner I love mine to :D

Mark

[multiweb]

I run everything by the KISS principle. The camera is just an ADU dumping a stream of data on to a HD. It's not heavy on resources, CPU or the system as a whole. It the driver is flaky it is just what it is: flaky.
I see the advantages of running the latest OS for processing programs but not for capture.

[Alchemy]

Thanks for the flat timing update, doing them in the observatory as I type, 20 x 5 sec flats. Plus dark flats too. So will have 20 of each for full calibration routine.

As for drivers, I'm using the ones Gama supplied with the camera..... No problems whatsoever... But I'm using the qhy capture program EZ cap ver2.4 it does all the necessary things, temp control, filter wheel,and exposure.

NOTE... AS PER MY PREVIOUS COMMENT , IF YOU DO AN EXPOSURE THROUGH THE LHS CAPTURE PROCESS IT GIVES A DIFFERENT BRIGHTNESS TO THE PLANNER TABLE....... CONFIRMED

I will use the planner table as it automates things ...just be aware.

Tonight is CLEAR SKIES, first real shoot. Looking forward to it.
It's good to have an active thread to throw together the details needed. :thumbsup: thanks for input from all both in the thread and by PM etc.

[multiweb]

:lol: Exactly. And I do astro-photo to relax but this is the kind of s||t I have to sort out at work on a daily basis. I want time-out. :P Anyway it's working now but why does it have to be so painful?


Yeah but my laptop is still running the 8 and the 5 just great. Gives me more flexibility than the new drivers so I'm making the most of it. If it ain't broke...


Fair enough but nah... Tom should write all the drivers and Qui stick to the hardware. :shrug:


True - love it. And it runs fine on XP. :D



Good stuff. I didn't think about using Ezycap. Will have to give it a go. :thumbsup: I think Theo dropped it on the CD too.