QHY5L-II on OSX/Mac

[Mckechg]

HI all,

does anyone know if you can use the QHY5L-II on OSX/Mac for AG with PHD?

I am wanting to move back to OS X as my imaging platform, however I have just bought a QHY5L-II Mono.

Thanks in advance.

G./

[garymck]

Won't work natively on OSX (no OSX driver), will work in a VMware Fusion virtual machine.

I have the same setup.

cheers
Gary

[Camelopardalis]

Might be worth taking a look at http://www.openastroproject.org as they seem to a Mac binary working with the QHY5L-ii, but I've not tried it...

[Mckechg]

Worked in 30 sec with this software.

Need to see if I can make it work in PHD, then I would be a happy boy!

thx guys.

(currently using VM and its annoying)

[codemonkey]

http://openphdguiding.org/snapshots.html Latest development snapshot of PHD2 is listing QHY5L-II support. Between this, EQMac and the new software by Cloudmakers I might actually be able to go full mac!

Well... except for plate solving. I'll just hope that the pointing accuracy of the EQ8 is amazing and I don't need it ;-)

[Logieberra]

Plate solving on Mac -SkyX.

[codemonkey]

Thanks mate :-)

Ok, sorry about the bum steer above, folks. Turns out that while they list support for QHY5L-II in the latest dev snapshot, they don't specify what platform it's supported on... I just downloaded it and there's no option in the list for QHY5L-II on OS X :-(

[Camelopardalis]

When it existed, there was talk in the QHY forum about testing Mac drivers.

OT anyone know what happened to QHY?

[04Stefan07]

Would be handy to have on Mac!

[codemonkey]

Hey guys, there's some movement here at the moment. Peter from Cloudmakers just emailed me a link to INDI Server 2.0.1 which has QHY support on OS X. I was able to connect and capture images using AstroImager and my QHY5L-IIM.

The devs working on PHD2 have a ticket raised in their system to get INDI support working on OS X (and Windows?), because currently it's only supported on Linux. INDI itself is a platform agnostic communication protocol so I wouldn't envision there's tooooo much work involved there, but that's a pretty ignorant assumption. If I can actually get PHD to compile on OS X I'll even have a crack at porting it myself.

[Logieberra]

Lee, would you explaing Indi in non tech terms :) Saw it mentioned on the CloudMakers site. Others might be wondering too.

[codemonkey]

INDI - Instrument Neutral Device Interface. You can basically think of it as ASCOM but not just for Windows.

Technically speaking it's quite different to ASCOM, but as far as the end-user goes it fills the same spot.

INDI is a protocol, a way for application developers to communicate with device drivers in a way that makes the drivers accessible to any programming language or platform. The drivers themselves still need platform-specific code internally, but that's hidden from the application developers.

The guys at Cloudmakers are working on INDI as well. AstroImager has support for INDI, but it's not turned on by default. You can download INDI as a separate install, from Cloudmakers, and then use any driver within their INDI server.

Things to note is that INDI is a protocol, not necessarily something you can download... but Cloudmakers have implemented that protocol and distribute a server that contains several drivers from CCDs to domes, filter wheels etc. It's some really great work that I hope continues to gain traction because it'll make it so much easier for application developers to focus on what matters, and produce great applications for end-users.

[Logieberra]

Thanks Lee - that helps heaps! ASCOM for Mac, and some :)

[codemonkey]

No worries Logan :-)

Some more news on this front. I've downloaded the source code for PHD2 and with some minor tweaks I was able to connect to a mount and camera (both simulated) running on an INDI server, go through the calibration process and apparently start guiding.

There's some cosmetic issues that need to be resolved, but it seems to be functional (note I've not done anything near an exhaustive test at this stage).

So to connect those dots, this means that the ability to guide with the QHY5L-II on OS X using PHD should be very, very close.

[Aferrari66]

Hello All,

Came across this thread and wanted to know if the QHY5L-II and Mac are now a viable option with PHD2?

I have this setup and would like to try it.

Al

[Mark_S]

*BUMP*

I too would like to know if the QHY5L-II can be used under OSX\MacOS with PHD

[dbowie]

I tried unsuccessfully about 6 mths ago gave up bought a PC just for cameras won't give up me Mac tho try thread on software and computers I seem to recall a few use Mac but def no native QHY drivers for OSX...

[dbowie]

Hi I found the thread hope it helps..
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=150617