SPC900 vs QHY5

[LeeS]

Just a quick one about how much difference there is in quality between the Philips and the QHY5.

If I'm going to pay £60 plus for a Philips, I was wondering if it'd be worth adding a bit extra for the QHY5.

Will be using it for planetary but looking to add to a finder to make a guiderscope in the future.

Does anyone have experience of both of these?

Cheers

[nmoushon]

I dont have experience in both but I can tell you the QHY5 will most definatley out perform any webcam. For planetary or guiding. The only thing is color QHY5 is not as sensitive as the mono QHY5 so it wont be as good at guiding. You'll only be able to see the brighter stars. If you have the money go for the QHY5. Hands down.

[LeeS]

Yeah that's what I was thinking.

I only wanted a webcam for some planetary and was looking at the Philips SPC900 and Logitech quickcams, but then got to thinking about using it for guiding.

That made me think about spending treble the money on the QHY5.

That made me think about a standalone autoguider.

Gets expensive quite quickly doesn't it.

[RogerTheDodger]

I Have both and the QHY5 is miles better for guiding. I haven't had a chance to try it on planetary but I have seen other people get good results.

[lensman57]

Just a quick one about how much difference there is in quality between the Philips and the QHY5.

If I'm going to pay £60 plus for a Philips, I was wondering if it'd be worth adding a bit extra for the QHY5.

Will be using it for planetary but looking to add to a finder to make a guiderscope in the future.

Does anyone have experience of both of these?

Cheers

Hi,

I think that due to some inexplicable reason a myth has grown around the philips 900 and its ability, great as this webcam is-was for planetary imaging at a low cost it is nowhere near the sensitivity of the more modern chipsets, including some budget C MOS ones. I think £60.00 for a SPC is a fair price and it will do guiding, any webcam could given a bright enough guide star. If, however you are in need of guiding in some dark part of the sky then you'd need a very sensitive chip. QHY5 is in another league compared to SPC and the more recent QHY5 II is even more sensitive. last night I was trying to do some capture of M86 around Virgo, I had a real problem finding any guide star that could be seen in my 80 mm guide scope, I pushed the gain of the ASI camera up all the way and set the software to stack 2 images, the exposure for PHD was 1.5 seconds and the camera found 1/2 dozen stars to lock onto, I don't think that this would have been possible with a less sensitive chip. You also need to consider the small chip size of the SPC, the new QHYs, I believe have the much larger 1/2" format chip so the FOV is much larger. Hope this helps.

Regards,

A.G

[Sam]

I've got both and the QHY5 out performs the SPC900 by a long way. My QHY5 is a few years old so I can only imagine that newer versions are even better. I've never had a problem finding guide stars (especially now it's attached to an OAG through 10").