First 'Light' on a QHY5

[Kai]

I have today recieved a QHY5 guide camera from Modern Astronomy.

So tonight i had a play at guiding.I have never even attempted this before !!!!!!!

So

Attach camera to scope,Attach leads 1x Usb to laptop and 1xST4 to Heq5 pro. errrrr that it !

Next

Fire up PHD Guiding and focus the scope/camera.....righto thats done

Find a star......and click on it,now the software calibrates itself (about 2 mins max) and then proceeds to guide.

I walk away for 5 mins and come back ........still guiding !!!

then some clouds blow over......ahhhhhh ......The software is reporting a lost star, okay i leave it for the clouds to clear, and.......Phd picks up the star again and readjusts the mount.

Is it meant to be that easy :scratch:

I have to say it was only a 20 minute "test" but i am very impressed with the ease of use

[centroid]

Sounds very promising Steve.

Keep us informed how that camera works out, as there's quite a bit of interest in them.

Aperture of guide scope, and approx mag of guide star would be good.

Dave

[CELESCOPE]

Glad u testing it Steve picking all my gear up on Saturday from Bern, getting the new reducer for the C11 as well , should make that one dance heheh its F5.9, ALSO PICKING UP THE NEW ed 80 equinox as well , and keeping my ED 80 for my holiday home ,

But pleased that QHY5 is working good , Eddie Davis says its the bees Knees , so should be fine .

Cheers

Rog

[Kai]

Aperture of guide scope, and approx mag of guide star would be good.

Ed80 and Firstly Vega but then just a random star near by (sorry i cant be specific) i varied the exposure from 0.2 secs to 5 secs and in the latter a awful lot of stars became visible.

The next step is to see if it will quide via my C8 sct ! and then play with various reducers to see how much leway i can get.

[Kai]

But pleased that QHY5 is working good , Eddie Davis says its the bees Knees , so should be fine .

Fingers crossed Rog

[jcm]

The "Gods" must be with you , most people seem to mess about for ages before getting it right.

Its good when clouds come over , especially if you are indoors and you don't notice the guiding has gone to pot.

John

[centroid]

For guiding, a maximum exposure time of 1 second is ideal. I have used 2 secs, at a 'push', but usually stick to 1 sec or less if possible.

Dave

[MartinB]

I was one who had a lot of frustrations before it all came together. I think it all hinges on the mount being in good working order.

As for length of star exposure, not sure I agree with Dave on 1 second being ideal. Short exposures are fine if the seeing is good and there is no wind. In poor conditions the guider can start chasing the seeing with escalating guide errors. It is no fun as watching the guide errors swing in ever increasing oscillations! If the tracking of the mount is reasonable I think 2-3 secs works pretty well. You will find out what works for your set up Steve. It is a great moment when you run a long exposure and see lovely small round stars at the end

[daz]

Kai

Sounds like a winner! And those QHY's are not a bad price either............

[centroid]

With AA4 guiding Martin, you can set it to ignore 'shifts' < > than x pixels, thus the software will ignore the type of changes intruduced by momentary changes in the 'seeing'. Hence 1 second guiding, which is what I use 99% of the time, doesn't 'chase' the 'seeing'.

Dave

[MartinB]

That's neat Dave. I guess it all depends on tracking accuracy and polar alignment and how good the guide star is. I think I would prefer to go a bit longer though if 1 second meant binning, unbinned definitely best. With the ZS66 and sxv guidehead I can normally find a decent guide star on 1 sec.

[centroid]

It probably helps Martin, that with a permanent 'set-up', my Polar Alignment is about as good as 'drift alignment' can get it, and of course it doesn't get disturbed.

My PE with the PEC switched in, is < 5 arc secs, which of course also helps.

Having said that, that scope (10" LX200GPS), is now with it's new owner, and I've now got to go through the whole process again, with the new 12" LX200R.

With the DSI and an 80mm guide scope, I don't have to 'swing' the guide scope around in the 'rings' to find a guide star, and so its nice to have everything pointing in the same direction (big scope, guide scope and finder).

Dave

[SteveL]

Is it meant to be that easy :scratch:

I have to say it was only a 20 minute "test" but i am very impressed with the ease of use

Sounds like my frst use of PHD in my NS8GPS, off-axis guider, and my DSI-C .... i kept thinking "am I missing something?".... no, I hadnt...it really is that easy (usually!)

[daz]

I would've thought Maxim would ignore those movements as well Martin??

[Kai]

2nd light update

Tonight i tried the Qhy5 on my C8 to see if it would be able to guide,I used a Atik 0.5 reducer in the nosepiece and switched it on (1 sec exposures) and accurately guided for 20mins.

So no problems there then

All i have to do now is wait until my Adm side by side bar turns up from the States and wait for a clear night.