PST with QHY5?

[Black Knight]

I shall be on holiday in September and hopefully have the use of a PST (weather permitting), which I am looking forward to immensely.

Ideally I'd like to do some Ha imaging while I have the chance. I have a NexImage colour webcam, but that is obviously not ideal from a solar imaging perspective.

I had a thought though ... Has anyone used a PST with a QHY5? I don't have a high-frame rate camera like a DMK, but using QHY's software (QGVideo) I can get around 20 fps at 640x480; more if I lower the resolution further.

Has anyone tried this? I've heard that focus can be a problem when using a camera with a PST, so any tips would be gratefully received .

[smerral]

Umm. I have never used that camera, but I have used an Atik Titan colour camera. For focus you will either need a complete barlow, or you will need to screw the lens off a skywatcher barlow into the camera adapter. It must be said though that the images through the Titan didn't match those of the b/w webcam as it has a colour CCD. if the resolution of the QHY5 is high enough though then you should still get some good images even though only using 1/4 of the pixels. I can't remember how the resolution compares to the Titan off hand.

Brian

[Black Knight]

Well QHY's website quotes 15 fps at 1280x1024, and 50 fps at 640x480. Although I couldn't achieve either of those framerates at those resolutions when I was testing today. The best I could manage was 20 fps at 640x480, and about 8-10 at 1280x1024, but hey ho!

Sounds like a workable plan, as long as I use a barlow. Really looking forward to giving this a go now .

Thanks Smerral

[smerral]

This was my sole attempt with the Atik - I'm sure more could be got out of it though. I didn't attempt prominences for instance. It's just that as soon as I tried the b/w cam it was obvious that that was the one to use - but the QHY5 has more pixels so it should do better. Hope you get some results!

[Black Knight]

Hope you get some results!

So do I. Since I don't own a PST this'll be my only chance for some while to try solar Ha imaging, so I'm trying to make sure I think of everything and dry-run everything before I go away! Here's hoping the weather plays ball, eh? . Nice pic BTW

[johnb]

I'm thinking of using a QHY5 with a PST, how did you get on

John B

[Black Knight]

TBH, I didn't really get a good run with it because of the weather. Never mind, perhaps another time .

Sent from my mobile using Tapatalk, so please excuse the speeling and granma!