It's true what they say about the QHY8

[blinky]

You dont need to take darks.... I took a 15min dark and I cannot get any noise out of it, I have stretched and stretched it and it is still black, with around 50 or so hot pixels but NO NOISE:D

[Euan]

Never used any with mine either, it was a waste of time. It's just as well, as it doesn't have set point cooling

Dithering sorts out the hot pixels, job done!

[FraserClarke]

Well that just suggests they haven't set the gain high enough!!

[glennbech]

I want one!

[r3i]

I want one!

They're a great value camera and I do like mine but they can have their foibles.

The one most often commented upon is icing and fogging due to the full on nature of the cooler. Fortunately it hasn't affected me yet, but QHY provide add ons to address the problem such as a variable output power supply (DC102) to replace the fixed output supply (DC101) and a t-thread dew heater ring to be fitted just in front of the optical window.

Another problem is CCD tilt which does affect my camera quite badly. Older versions of the camera had some adjustment screws on each side of the chip but later ones such as mine do not. They now sell an optical window with a built-in tilt/centre adjustment mechanism: New M42 TO M42 optic window with 3mm thickness IR glass - I've recently received mine but because of the weather I haven't been able to test it. Hopefully this will fix my annoying tilt and then I'll be very happy with my camera.

It has to be said their after sales support is very good - the designers regularly frequent their forum and the user support ticket system seems to work well.

The current QHY8 is being or has been discontinued to be replaced by a QHY8L so maybe these gremlins will be resolved in the newer model.

[glennbech]

Thanks for the heads up on the camera. I'll be shopping for a CCD this time next year. Bring on the development :-)