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QHY5 vs SV205


malc-c

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Looking for some advice / predictions before I go making big changes to my observatory set up.

My  Explorer 200P is permanently mounted in the observatory with a Canon 400D as the main imaging camera, and an original QHY5 mono camera attached to a 9 x 50 finder as the guidescope.  I have been gifted a SVBony 205 by a kind and generous member and whilst this seem like a good Luna and Planetary camera I can't find any information on how well it performs as a guide camera.  So hence the question.

The QHY5 is so old that I can't find any info on the sensor other than it has 5.2um x 5.2um pixels and is mono.  The SV205 uses a SONY IMX179 with a Pixel Size of 1.4µm x1.4µm, and is a colour camera.  Now assuming I can attach the SV205 to the finderscope and get focus (yet to have a play) how would it perform on paper when used with PHD2.  From what I can see in Sharpcap, the QHY5 is more configurable for frame rates.  The finder focal length is 181mm if that helps - 

If it transpires that the SV205 is great at imaging the moon / Jupiter / Saturn etc then rather than a guide camera then I'll reserve its use for the occasion when the planets are better placed before I go pulling apart a perfectly balanced and configured set up.

 

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Looking at the drawing for the SV205 it may not even be possible to connect the camera to the finder.  The camera seems to have a proprietary external thread of M26.5 x 0.5mm on the part from its body where the eyepiece tube normally fits, so would need a ring with the fine outer diameter finderscope thread of M51 x 0.75 with an internal M26.5 x 0.5..... 

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I don't think it is good for either - planetary or guiding.

This is really overpriced web camera. I'm sure one can find web cam with similar specs for less money and make 1.25" nose piece adapter for it.

Problem is that this camera is USB 2.0 yet can achieve 30fps at 1920x1080. How so? It uses compression like any other web camera.

It does not support raw format. This will introduce compression artifacts in planetary images and also will skew precise star position and affect guiding.

It is really "electronic eyepiece" type device - that you insert into scope and instead of using eyepiece  - project image onto computer screen. That is it.

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Thanks for the replies guys, didn't really want to look a gift horse in the mouth so to speak, as it was nice to be gifted a camera.  

I already have an MS HD Livecam adapted for use as a luna / planetary camera, along with a trusty old Philips SPC900 CCD webcam (640 x 480 max), both work well for that role.

I believe the SV205 is USB3, but even on my main PC, a 4 core 8 thread Ryzen 1500x, with 16GB DDR4 ram it was dropping frames 50% of the time when exposure was increased passed 31ms.  The observatory PC is only a humble dual core Pentium with 4GB of DDR3 ram, so no idea how that would cope.

For use as a guidescope, well that would be a non starter as there is no way to fit it to the finder due to the fact the camera doesn't use a standard T / C ring

I'm sure I'll find a use for it some time.  Shame there is no lens attachment so it could be used like a poor mans Polemaster :)

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