SharpCap Pro + QHY5 Camera Drivers

[malc-c]

After a gap of almost 4 years I'm starting to get back into the hobby, if only for casual use.  Without going into too much detail I've spent the past few days stripping the 200P, cleaning optics, re-balancing and recollimating the scope.  Everything was fine, but since its last outing I've notices a lot of the software applications have advanced dramatically, including sharpcap, which now has a nice polar alignment routine which, for £10 I thought was worth a punt compared to shelling out almost £300 for polemaster, that, as the scope is permanently house in an observatory, would then gather dust after it's done its job.

On of the issue I had was with an ST80 on top of the 200P the HEQ5 mount had a lot of mass to move around, so I opted to remove the ST80 and ordered an adaptor ring to connect the QHY5 to the 9x50 SW finderscope.  Everything was hooked up, and a quick focus test / collimation test was done a few nights back and please to say the rebuild went OK, so all I needed to do was wait for the adaptor to arrive to complete the task.

The adaptor arrived today and so I continued with the refurbishment.  With the QHY5 connected I downloaded and installed the latest version (3.2.6269.0) version of SharpCap having purchased the annual licence.  This is when I ran into a slight problem.  The application wouldn't install as the Observatory PC was running Windows 7 without SP1.  No issue - just spend an hour or so downloading all the windows 7 updates that were still available from MS and try again.  Two hours later the installer was still complaining that it needed SP1 installed, even though it had been installed... OK time to bite the bullet and update the PC to Windows 10

To save time I used Reflect to place an image of windows 10 on the PC and then activated windows.  I have now spent best part of the afternoon installing all the USB / Serial drivers (yup one was a Prolific device !) but having got all the latest versions of EQAscom (EQMOD), CdC, and my licenced copy of APT installed and all talking to the hardware I then turned my attention to the QHY5 camera, and having installed the driver that worked under windows 7 and the QGvideo software it was checked and connected just fine.  Installed Sharpcap and it didn't complain about anything.  Pasted in the licence key which it accepted, so launched the application and sure enough it had picked up the QHY5-M camera.  However on loading it produces the black screen, and populated the right hand panel with exposure data but then a pop appears with a bug / error report "Error 'QHYCCD_ERROR' from call to Camera.BeginExposure"

I'm hoping Robin reads this forum (I know he used to) and can shed some light on how I can get this resolved.  I've read the comments on the website, which mentions possible driver issues - but then doesn't go into any further details on Ascom drivers, but there are no links.  So more searching through old folders on my network drive I found a possible old ASCOM driver for the QHY5.  This stopped SharpCap from crashing, but I still get the warning message that functionality is limited.  Hopefully it will be enough to allow me to undertake polar alignment later this evening.

Given the popularity of the old QHY5 (see attached) I'm amazed that there doesn't seem to be a proper driver from the manufactures, even if it was only a windows 7 variant.  Does anyone know of a dedicated driver that will work rather than using the ASCOM platform?   

Edited April 7, 2020 by malc-c

[Rocket Stars]

Go to the sharpcap forums. Link in the sharpcap webpage/support tab.  I found that he usally respond in the evenings. Great software! 

Edited April 8, 2020 by Rocket Stars

[Stargazer33]

QHY5 driver here: https://www.qhyccd.com/index.php?m=content&c=index&a=show&catid=29&id=1

[malc-c]

Cheers... I actually managed to find the originals I downloaded some time back.  All working now, but thanks for the link