Any practical advantage from using ST4 on a QHY5?

[dlp]

Just bought a QHY5 and am using with PHD/EQASCOM just with a usb cable. I wondered if there is any practical advantage gained by connecting up the camera ST4 port to the (HEQ5Pro) mount please?

David

[Photosbykev]

none that I've found. I did have the ST4 lead connected from the camera to mount as well as the USB to the laptop.

I then found out the ST4 lead wasn't doing anything in my configuration, so I'll remove it from the harness next time I set the system up.

[SteveL]

In all honesty, no real difference or advantage.

[Merlin66]

If you're NOT using EQASCOM for any reason then ST4 camera - ST4 mount is the way to guide....

[NickK]

It depends.

If the tracking is implemented in the camera, the speed at which it could analyse and transmit corrections to the mount over ST4 could be faster. There is lower latency. However this depends on how sophisticated the tracking and image analysis software is and how fast the camera CPU doing the work is. To do a decent job the CPU will be quite expensive.

When the computer does tracking it will have to transmit images over the USB bus. However computers are built todo this and so negates any real overall advantage of running it in the camera nowdays.

So as others have said - the software tracking algorithms are probably better on the computer than the camera..

[SteveL]

The QHY5 is just a camera that has an ST4 port, it doesnt do any onboard processing itself, the attached PC does all the hard work.

[NickK]

The QHY5 is just a camera that has an ST4 port, it doesnt do any onboard processing itself, the attached PC does all the hard work.

Ok that's a bit useless lol.

If the camera is just relaying it's serial commands from the computer to the mount over ST4 then it's just another leg and adds latency so just use a direct computer connection.