Qhy5l ii

[Tandum]

Does anyone have one of these new cameras?

Looking at the product sheet (http://qhyccd.com/ccdbbs/index.php?PHPSESSID=dc3fab6639a35e1 854a3cc821f0dff12&topic=3418.msg20288#msg20288) they are claiming a QE of 74% for the mono version. Starlight list the lodestar (http://www.sxccd.com/lodestar-autoguider) QE at 65%?

I'm wondering how true this is.

[MrB]

They are out now?
I had given up hope, kinda like Synta with their EQ8.

[Tandum]

Yes they are out now.

[peter_4059]

looks good - can't see them on Theo's site though. How much are they charging for it?

[coldlegs]

Theo's got the mono in stock for $325 inc delivery. Just bought one to play with.
Cheers
Stephen

[naskies]

If you're interested in the QHY5L II, you may also want to check out these cameras too (as per guodong's post in the Classifieds section):

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/ZWO-Astronomy-Camera-ASI120MM-Free-shipping/647449237.html

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/ZWO-Astronomy-Camera-ASI130MM-Gold/521403546.html

[Astro_Bot]

At the risk of sounding ignorant, who is Theo and what is the URL of his site?

[peter_4059]

http://www.gamaelectronics.com.au/index.html

[Astro_Bot]

Thanks!

[graham.hobart]

Has anyone had a go with the new QHY guider yet?
graham

[peter_4059]

Do they have an ascom driver?

[Tandum]

Yes they do and they have put some details on their webpage.

http://www.qhyccd.com/QHY5II.html

[graham.hobart]

Has anyone actually got one and if so, How does it compare with a lodestar or a BIG ST-i for example.
I know on paper it looks good but has anyone got any user comments?
Graz

[peter_4059]

Looks like they are being released in Jan 13. Could only find beta ascom drivers on their site.

[Tandum]

Yep, I got one, but we have had perpetual cloud cover since it arrived. But I have it setup on an old OAG in the dome waiting to be focused.

As usual, there is a problem with the ascom drivers, they won't expose for more than 4 seconds. They say that will be fixed in the next driver release.

But 4 sec is prolly enough for guiding.

Theo has them listed now -> http://www.gamaelectronics.com.au/QHY5L2.html

[Tandum]

It cleared a little tonight and I got everything focused. I'd estimate it's twice as sensitive as the original qhy5 but sees maybe 30% less sky. The uncalibrated image is a lot cleaner than the calibrated image from the original. I can see I'll need a rotator on this new scope once I got all the bits set up so I can find a guidestar in the OAG.

Clouds where fickle so I pulled the camera/wheel/oag assembly apart and put the qhy into the filter wheel and tried some avi capture. Images looked very clean but it clouded over again before I got anything I could process up. Maybe next year.

Here is a screen print I grabbed while running the green AVI on this lappy. I cropped the media player crap off the image. I think I might get myself a powermate now :)

[coldlegs]

Got a QHY5L-II (Mono) recently and would guess it's about double the sensitivity of a SPC900NC. It's got a front ring that looks like it was meant for a microscope as it's too small to screw a filter on. Theo tells me there are new rings and adapters coming in the new year that will fit filters as well there is the OSC model coming. Did some speed testing as I run through a 5m usb extender and about 2m of cable and sure enough it slows things down a bit as does having the rest of my gear running. Here's the data so far. Haven't tried a ram disk yet but it should work as my hard drives aren't all that fast.
Cheers
Stephen

[peter_4059]

Looking forward to hearing of guiding experience from someone - especially sensitvity/finding guide stars and use with PHD.

[Tandum]

Pete, I want to try that here and compare the qhy with L2 but the weather :(

Here's a single 10 minute Ha sub from the big atik, OAG guided, but it's not a good example as I used a 2" GSO corrector and the sensor was about 30mm to far away yada yada yada.
The stars in the center look sort of ok. 12" newt on an eq6 and it was guiding on OAG banana stars in maxim.

It seems most people are more interested in the video from it anyway. It produces very clean images in video.

[Tandum]

http://qhyccd.com/file/repository/ASCOM/QHY5LIIASCOMSetup.exe?cms_action=ma nage

This ascom driver is supposed to fix the 5sec exposure limit for this camera.