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 [1.4MB]
Large M16/17 is here [1.2MB] and
Large LMC is here [1.3MB]
Excuse the framing, I just pointed and shot real quick just in case those damn clouds came back like last time
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 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
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 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
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...
Quote:
Originally Posted by 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
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by g__day
I'm impressed!
Thanks Matt. Hope you're getting better and plenty of rest.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 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
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.
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.
Thanks mate. 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.
Hope you're getting better and plenty of rest.
