best camera for all sky use

[JamesF]

You can resist anything but temptation, eh?

James

[JamesF]

I see there's a new one up today for the same price.

James

[Gina]

Very interesting   Trouble is, I'd need an overdraft to be able to buy that even at £149 for the colour version let alone the sixty quid more for the mono version!   That would add £6 plus the interest.  With that price difference I would be inclined to try the colour version

[Horwig]

Bern has noted the QHY as dispatched, will keep you updated. One thing that does slightly worry me is the appearance of stars on the Bayer matrix. If the focus is precise, and the stars hit individual pixels, I'm going to get some funny colours. Might be better if the focus is slightly off.. We shall see.

Huw

[JamesF]

I'd say there's not much point getting into debt to buy a colour camera when you have the mono ones to work with at the moment.

James

[Gina]

Bern has noted the QHY as dispatched, will keep you updated. One thing that does slightly worry me is the appearance of stars on the Bayer matrix. If the focus is precise, and the stars hit individual pixels, I'm going to get some funny colours. Might be better if the focus is slightly off.. We shall see.

Huw

Ah, that's a good point - hadn't thought of that

[Gina]

I quite agree James   I'll stick to my principles - won't buy anything I don't need until I get past this temporary cash flow problem.  Should be clear in a month or two.

[JamesF]

Bern has noted the QHY as dispatched, will keep you updated. One thing that does slightly worry me is the appearance of stars on the Bayer matrix. If the focus is precise, and the stars hit individual pixels, I'm going to get some funny colours. Might be better if the focus is slightly off.. We shall see.

Huw

You could perhaps treat raw colour (before debayering) night-time images directly as a monochrome frame and boost the different colour photosites to balance out the different QEs for the separate colours.

I've not tried that for this sort of image, but I've done it with a DSLR image of the Moon and it seemed to work out fairly well.  The obvious difference is that the Moon is somewhat brighter.

James

[Cath]

don't forget Gina, that mono gives you the best resolution and sensitivity, and can be customized to any IR/visual wavelength you so desire.

colour sensors are highly biased. though saying, I do seem to like colour images .. assuming sensor sensitivity is adequate enough.

[Gina]

Yes, I agree Cath   I'll stick with mono for night-time use.  Thank you

[Cath]

mmmm I know you know

Most often the main reason for my adding posts are for those that are loving the learning ..  though I think I mostly fail in this area. such is life !

[Horwig]

Posty just been, waiting for darkness...

Huw

[Horwig]

Couldn't wait for darkness, using EZPlanetary from QHY, which gives auto exposure and auto white balance.

Here's the daylight performance, gain 1% exp 500 micro seconds.

Backfocus on the camera is very shallow at 10.4mm The Fujinon is a CS lens, therefore 12.526 mm backfocus, so I reckon I have space to mount everything in a housing by a plate between the lens and camera.

Huw

[tdnicholls]

Which version of EZPlantery Huw?

[Horwig]

Hi Trevor, saw your post regarding versions on the other thread, so went for 3.7.6, seems to work a treat in daylight anyway, lets see what happens later.

Thanks

Huw

[tdnicholls]

The odd thing is I downloaded the latest version off the QHY site, v3.78 and that also has the ACE/AEG buttons on the histogram ...somewhat confused now as was 100% sure that version did not have the support.

Have v3.78 working fine here now

[Gina]

Does EZPlanetary work with the old QHY5, do you know?

[tdnicholls]

Quick check and the QHY5 is not in the list, it a free download so could try it.

[Gina]

Thank you   Hmm...  If not on the list probably not supported, but worth a try.

[JamesF]

QHY don't seem to be supporting their older cameras (ones that are no longer produced) any more.  Their open source driver code doesn't include them either.  I had to write my own QHY5 driver for oaCapture by using the various different bits of software that do support it as reference documentation.

It's a shame really as there must be huge numbers of QHY5 cameras out there.

James

[Horwig]

Well, this must be a first. new kit and a clear night sky. Went out to see friends tonight, but got to experiment after getting back home. First reaction, this is no lodestar, but as a way of watching clouds roll in it's going to be excellent.

Loads of hot pixels, but very sensitive. The EZPlanetary software will take a bit of getting used to, but I think its going to work.

At the moment, can't get it to play with Maxim or Nebulosity, but that's probably me.

The bright spot at 9 o clock on edge of frame is a reflection on some guttering of my computer monitor through the window just out of frame!!! (and it's a small window)

Huw

[JamesF]

Looks pretty good

James

[Gina]

Not bad at all for a colour camera

[Horwig]

Yes, quite impressed, and that for about a third the price of an SX camera. EZPlanetary also looks to be a very capable piece of software. I was too impatient to allow it to do its auto thing properly last night, so gain is probably too high in the shot above. To put it in perspective, the top of the building is lit by my nearest street lights which are over half a mile away.

Now comes to task of designing a new enclosure. It's too deep for the present one.

Huw

[Gina]

Ah yes, must download EZPlanetary and see if it works with the QHY5.  I've just tried FireCapture but it's maximum exposure seems to be 5s - far too short for an All Sky Camera, at least for the QHY5.