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QHY5-II vs QHY5L-II

Obi Wan Ken00bi

By Obi Wan Ken00bi
in Discussions - Cameras

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Obi Wan Ken00bi

Obi Wan Ken00bi

Posted
Posted

I know, you have to read it twice to find a difference, but I'm able to get a good deal on a new QHY5L-II (for 145 pounds), but I like to use it for guiding (although once in a while a planet would be nice, but this has no priority).

The pdf says it will still guide, but I obviously dont like to change to a more expensive camera after a year or so if the guiding isn't up to standards.

http://qhyccd.com/en/left/page3/qhy5-ii-series/

Anyone have experience with the new series or any thoughts on this? I'm going to use it on a st80....

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sloz1664

sloz1664

Posted
Posted

I have the QHY5LII mono to use for planetary imaging, although I use my Mammut Lyuba for guiding I did try the QHY5L II.

I found it better than the original QHY5 I found it has a lot cleaner, sharper image, with hardly any noise whatsoever.

Although it has a smaller chip than the original QHY5, the ST80/QHY5L II would make a good guiding combination.

cheers

Steve

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  • 5 months later...
Shibby

Shibby

Posted
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Sorry for the bump... I'm trying to decide between these two cameras for guiding. Please correct me if this is wrong or I'm missing anything, but:

- The advantage of the QHY5-II is the larger sensor.

- The advantages of the QHY5L-II are the smaller pixels and that it's more sensitive.

With my fingerguider, it seems that the 5L is the better option, but if I then move to an OAG will I regret the smaller sensor? Or will the extra sensitivity make up for it in terms of guidestar count??

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Psychobilly

Psychobilly

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I am hoping it will work in my home made Celestron Finder based finder guider ... I wanted something with an integrated guide port that was smaller, lighter and used less power than the Meade DSI's I use in the obs...

I have a plan which involves my 600/f4 , 300/f2.8 and a finder guider...

Peter...

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Shibby

Shibby

Posted
Posted

Sounds like some interesting plans Peter; and the new QHY cameras do look very small & sensitive.

My webcam has served me well enough, but I'm fed up of having to find bright guide stars to get a good enough SNR for decent guiding.

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JamesF

JamesF

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I have the "L" model. I gambled a bit on the higher sensitivity giving a better choice of guide stars when I want to use it in a finder-guider, though the impression I have is that both should work acceptably.

James

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Psychobilly

Psychobilly

Posted
Posted

Cameras ( QHY5-II Mono ) arrived and so have the clouds and rain showers...

Installed the software and drivers of the mini-cd and put the camera into my celestron 8x50 finder guider...

Needed to use the included 1.25" extension to get daytime focus on a distant pylon...

Need clear skies to test it under the stars...

Also looking for something better than EZPlanetry Capture that is supplied with the cam..

Peter...

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nmoushon

nmoushon

Posted
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I have the mono attached to my 9x50 for a guider. I live in pretty heavy LP so finding stars can sometimes be difficult but I just move the finderguider a bit off alignment with the scope and I have always found one to guide on which has given me 5min subs easily.

One thing to note is there is no install guide and last I checked their forum wasn't very helpful. I had a awful time getting mine to work when i first got it. I had to get up at 4am to get on IM and chat with their tech guy. Eventually he had to get on and actually controll my computer from europe (im in the usa) to get the correct drivers in the right places. After that I haven't had a problem with it.

What I've heard the main difference is actually the opposite. That the mono is more sensitive than the color, which is why it was sold as the "guide cam" and the color is sold as the "planetray cam". Whether which one is actually more sensitive than the other i dont know. Mine gets me what I need so I'm happy with it.

I also use PHD is to guide with not the software they use which is one reason for some of my troubles as you have to go through a couple things that are the "normal" routine you would think of to get it started.

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JamesF

JamesF

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What I've heard the main difference is actually the opposite. That the mono is more sensitive than the color, which is why it was sold as the "guide cam" and the color is sold as the "planetray cam". Whether which one is actually more sensitive than the other i dont know. Mine gets me what I need so I'm happy with it.

It's usually the case that mono cameras are more sensitive than their colour counterparts because the mono cameras don't have the bayer matrix in front of the sensor cells blocking a significant proportion of the photons that would otherwise reach the sensor. In the case of the QHY5-II and QHY5L-II, the former is only available as a mono camera whereas the latter is available as both mono and colour. The mono QHY5L-II is claimed to be more sensitive than the QHY5-II mono.

James

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JamesF

JamesF

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Firecapture is working really well under Win7x64... Pity there's no cloud removal option :)

I have to admit that I have found no real fault with SharpCap and it was great to use with my SPC900, but I'm starting to get on very well with Firecapture. It doesn't always seem to get on with my ASI120, but hopefully that should be fixed once the new version is released.

James

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Psychobilly

Psychobilly

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I didn't have much luck with Sharpcap... It's probably me and I will need to look into it.

At the moment I am only looking at the video capture side of things an not the guiding... If it's clear tomorrow night I will try it on the EQ3 Pro. ..

Peter...

Sent from my GT-P7300 using Tapatalk 4

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  • 3 weeks later...
Jannis

Jannis

Posted
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I can only say that i have the 5L-II, and i find it very sensetive indeed. So sensitive in fact that i'm concidering to maybe try some deep sky narrowband imaging with it as well.

I have to add i'm seriously dissapointed in how unstable the QHY5L-II it is though. Never, in my 10+ years as a computer technician, have i had to re-plug and/or restart software this many times due to crashes/freezes/no response in settings changes as i am with the QHY5L-II.

I've found out how to use it in PHD though. If gain needs to be changed, just change settings, and restart PHD. For EZPlanetary i've found it working OK-ish most of the times. But if i adjust some settings it freezes/crashes more often then not, and a replug and restart of software is needed.

Last time i had a friend over to shop the new cam with a "live-view" of some brighter DSO, in about 15 min, EZPlanetary had crashed 4 times... -.-

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JamesF

JamesF

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I can only say that i have the 5L-II, and i find it very sensetive indeed. So sensitive in fact that i'm concidering to maybe try some deep sky narrowband imaging with it as well.

I have to add i'm seriously dissapointed in how unstable the QHY5L-II it is though. Never, in my 10+ years as a computer technician, have i had to re-plug and/or restart software this many times due to crashes/freezes/no response in settings changes as i am with the QHY5L-II.

I am also finding that something is very unstable between PHD, ASCOM and the QHY5L-II and at this point I'm reasonably sure it's not me. Initially I'd put it down to me not really having a good feel for what I was doing. PHD will guide quite happily, but sometimes crashes when I want to restart it for a new target. On some occasions the camera ends up "wedged" and I have to unplug and reconnect the camera to reset it. I don't know if it's actually a camera problem. It could well be the ASCOM driver that is at fault. I can't fault it when everything works, but it would be nice if it wouldn't tie itself in knots.

Someone posted a decent M27 image from the same camera in the last day or two, so it's definitely worth trying.

James

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Psychobilly

Psychobilly

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Also seems daft that you manually have to re-install the drivers if you change USB ports....

I haven't used it in anger yet I have tried it on my Celestron 8x50 based finder guider, there seems to be a big halo around the stars when using the camera. which moves if you tilt the camera slightly so maybe it's a reflection of the sensor..

PHD did calibrate and "guide"... I tried the native driver with on camera guiding.

Peter...

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Jannis

Jannis

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You don't need to manually reinstall the driver when changing the USB port om windows 7 at least. It goes fully automatically and is usually done in mess then 5-10 sec. :)

In PHD i found out only ASCOM is stable enough and have only crashed once.Only need to restart PHD if changing gain. But i have only used 1-3 sec exposures so far. WDM driver in PHD is, um.. - well, let's just say it can go a certain place and burn...

Your halo i'm guessing can be from either the front glass plate, wich i have heard from others that they wanted to remove due to reflections - thuoght i haven't had issues with any halos in PHD yet, and i have mine in place still.

It could pherhaps be if you don't use an IR filter? I haven't tried mine without an IR filter yet. I mean, i have, but then i used an IR-pass instead of IR-block, so... Never tried it "clear" with no filters.

And maybe we shouldn't exclude maybe it's simply just very poor optics (coma?) from the finderscope that was never intended for imaging? Don't know though.

Well, this is all for the 5L-II, i don't know how the 5-II is in comparison with drivers, stability, reflections and so.

I might be completly off track with teh halo though, but let me know if you find out about it at least. :)

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JamesF

JamesF

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You don't need to manually reinstall the driver when changing the USB port om windows 7 at least. It goes fully automatically and is usually done in mess then 5-10 sec. :)

I've swapped USB ports without a problem too. Windows7 again. Perhaps other releases are different.

James

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