QHY5PII-C as a guiding and planetary/solar imaging solution?

[ramdom]

I've already ordered the Mallincam Skyraider-DSc which is a large pixel low resolution (in terms of total number of pixels) camera which I think will be great for NRT imaging. I think even with the great images taken with shorter (~1 minute) exposures that Rock and Chris have posted on the Mallincam page for the camera, I think I may need to go to longer exposures and therefore will require a guiding solution (I'm also impatient waiting for the DSc). I was thinking of getting the Orion Starshoot System but then came across this: 

QHY5 II C - http://qhyccd.com/en/left/page3-1-2-1/qhy5-ii-series-1-2-1/

which is a 5mp camera that one can buy directly from China for cheaper and it seems it'd nicely complement my Mallincam (planetary and solar images are great). I was thinking I'd get the Orion 50mm scope and use that for guiding/imaging (for now) and/or the Orion TOAG for guiding. Eventually I'll upgrade to a nice ED apochromatic refractor. I've already ordered two FRs (0.63 * 0.5) to reduce my F/10 scope to F/3.6 or so. It looks like this camera is supported in both Mac OS X and Linux (I was thinking of creating a dedicated guiding/imaging set up on a cheap Raspberry Pi system, and if possible). 

What do people think? I understand the pixel size is small here but I'm assuming there is a binning mode to increase sensitivity for guiding. Other option is to consider QHY5L (which is 1.2mp).  Thanks!

So basically I'm asking if people have used the QHY5L C with a Mac and what do they think of it? I did a Google search but it gave me links that were very dated.

--Ram

[Astroboffin]

The camera you have mentioned is not a 5 megapixel, it is 1.3, you are talking about the "P" version further down on that website, never heard of anybody using that as at full resolution its only 7 frames per second, not much good really.

But the QHY5II C would be very good at full 1.3 megapixels you will get around 30fps, and is the same chip as in the very highly rated ASI120mc cam.

Hope that helps

AB

[ramdom]

Yeah, sorry I keep forgetting to type the P. I found the forum dedicated to qhyccd - it looks like support for Mac OS X and Linux is tenuous.  I checked out that ASI model you mentioned and I asked OPT a question and they said it's not supported on the Mac.   Even though it's not 5MP, I think the QHY minicam5S apparently has more support in Unix systems than the QHY5 for some reason.  I saw someone here with a signature that looked like they were doing it all in Linux (using gimp, etc.) and I thought that's the set up I want to have but I haven't seen them post again. 

--Ram

[ramdom]

It looks like this camera ZWO ASI120S does indeed have Mac support and oacapture works on it. Has anyone used it on a Mac OS X or Linux system and doing guiding with it? IF so, my search for a complementary camera to the Mallincam would be over (the Mallincam Skyraider-DS looks very good but in the end, its a ~0.5 mp camera). I am trying to get something in the 1-2mp range also especially since I probably won't have it for a couple of weeks at least.

Do cams like this work with PHD, anyone know (14 mp!): http://www.ebay.com/itm/14-0-Megapixel-High-Definition-Digital-Telescope-Camera-Live-Video-/141202471907?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20e052bbe3

I am finding a dearth of responses to these camera specific posts, unlike my other questions---must be highly specialised!  Hmm.

Thanks a lot!

[JamesF]

The ASI120MC doesn't work as well as it might on OSX because of USB compatibility issues, but it is possible to change the firmware to make it more reliable.  It may even be that the latest API from ZWO does this automagically when you connect the camera.  In my experience the 120MC-S version (the USB3 version) works fine for planetary capture with oaCapture on OSX.  Both work fine with oaCapture on Linux.

The QHY5L-IIc works for some with oaCapture on both OSX and Linux, but there's a bug that will be fixed in the next (imminent) release meaning it should work for everyone.

Guiding I'm not entirely sure about on either OSX or Linux at the moment, but if it doesn't work now then at some point I will "make it so" because I'll be wanting to do the same myself.

No idea about the QHY5P-II or QHY5T-II as I don't have access to them.  The QHY5-II does work with oaCapture, sometimes, kind of.  Lack of documentation is something of an issue when it comes to writing camera drivers.

James

(author of oaCapture)

[ramdom]

Thanks so much James! I've been reading a few of your posts on the qhyccd forums - thanks for clarifying the issue. Last exchange I read was the QHY people telling you they wanted to talk to you about your Mac OS X development and I'm not sure what was the outcome from that. So I should for the QHY5L-IIc or the mono QHY5-II if I want to be sure of it working with oaCapture. How about the miniCAM5S, do you know?

I guess you're working to make oaCapture a universal piece of software but of these cameras (QHY, ASI, etc.), which one would you pick? I notice you don't list any cameras in your signature... :/

--Ram

[JamesF]

There's not room in my signature to list the cameras I have now

Of the QHY5-II and QHY5L-IIc I would probably choose the QHY5L-IIc.  The driver for that is much more reliable than the other.  I don't believe even the open source driver that QHY have published for the QHY5-II actually works properly.

I have no idea about the miniCAM5S I'm afraid.  Everything I've done thus far with the QHY cameras has been based on information I could find on the net or what I could reverse engineer.  I've had no significant help from QHY other than using the camera firmware they publish on their forums and they've not contacted me further about OSX development.

Of the QHY and ASI cameras I'd personally pick the ASI120, especially for use on OSX and Linux as ZWO seem very positive and proactive thus far.  QHY may be committed to Linux and OSX support, but I'm not getting the same positive impression from them right now as I do from ZWO.

As I can't completely remove Windows from the picture just yet and have everything work the way I want, I use an ASI120MM-S for planetary imaging and a QHY5L-IIm for guiding, though I may move to the ASI174MM for planetary imaging in the future.  I don't tend to use colour cameras much now, so other opinions are certainly worth considering.

James

[ramdom]

Okay, I got the ZWO ASI120MC-S camera and all indications are that it will work well for capture under Mac OS X/Linux and potentially for guiding also.  Looks like I'm going to end up collecting different cameras if I go this route (I've now covered the 0.5mp and 1mp ranges). I really do like the QHY hardware a lot but possibly may have to look at Atik, etc. for the higher MP captures. Thanks a lot for your help...

--Ram