July 27 2021 - New camera same sensor

[Simon2940]

I got fed up of my crumbling ASI174MM which seems to just get worse and worse as the weeks go on, so I decided to replace it with the QHY version, the QHY5III-174 Mono. Yeah yeah, i know, its the same sensor, BUT it actually worked better!! I dont mean cuz its a new camera. The issues ive had with horizontal banding does not show up on the QHY version, also the noise is way less compared to the ASI174MM. I also managed to gain an increase in frame rate from 75fps to 85fps. I did some sample shots so you can all take a look.

PXL_20210727_161230291.jpg (174.32 KiB) Viewed 755 times

001.jpg (625.94 KiB) Viewed 755 times

002.jpg (358.92 KiB) Viewed 755 times

003.jpg (1.01 MiB) Viewed 755 times

4 Panel.jpg (1.08 MiB) Viewed 755 times

9 Panel.jpg (1.7 MiB) Viewed 755 times

So here is an 8bit vs 16bit comparison as well

8 bit at 138fps 2000 frames best of 20%

8BIT.jpg (592.75 KiB) Viewed 755 times

16 bit at 85fps 2000 frames best of 20%

16BIT.jpg (587.47 KiB) Viewed 755 times

screen.jpg (614.05 KiB) Viewed 755 times

Im really happy with the results of the camera and wonder why not so many people use it and why i havent tried it sooner. I seriously think its a lot cleaner than the ASI174MM.

[minhlead]

Great shots Simon. And your seeing is really good base on your Sharpcap screen cap.
Also, from my personal experience, ASI tends to fare better on the software side of things.
QHY's driver is a nightmare. Everytime I update the driver I have to cross the fingers just to pray for not having anything breaks. But most of the time, something breaks anyway. Maybe it's the cooler, maybe it's the frame speed or perhasp it's the binning. QHY's driver guy does not seem to know what he is doing.
So if you have a QHY camera and everything is working as expected then do your self a favour and do not update that driver.

[eroel]

Simon:
Very good results.
Best regards,
Eric.

[Montana]

Excellent results yes, my ASI174 is very noisy, if I had known (people had spoken about it) I wouldn't have bought that version. I'm stuck with it now


Alexandra

[marktownley]

Nice shots Simon and glad you're pleased with the new camera!

[Simon2940]

Funny you mentioned drivers, they got a lot better. I tried with the version i had vs the newest version and the newer driver was nice and stable.

I admit that QHY drivers have been questionable over the years but they really have gotten their act together. ZWO also gives source code to the software makers to help out and QHY has recently started to release SDK. A lot of software makers just groan at the fact that there is another set of instructions to program so they tend not to bother and rely on ASCOM which gets passed back to the camera makers.

Player One Cameras have recently gotten ahead of ZWO in software since the original dev team where from ZWO. Their main focus is astro and science is secondary.

I've harped on QHYs case for months and month and they are starting to listen to all of us and make a huge effort. Lets just hope its up from here.

Great shots Simon. And your seeing is really good base on your Sharpcap screen cap.
Also, from my personal experience, ASI tends to fare better on the software side of things.
QHY's driver is a nightmare. Everytime I update the driver I have to cross the fingers just to pray for not having anything breaks. But most of the time, something breaks anyway. Maybe it's the cooler, maybe it's the frame speed or perhasp it's the binning. QHY's driver guy does not seem to know what he is doing.
So if you have a QHY camera and everything is working as expected then do your self a favour and do not update that driver.

[Simon2940]

Believe me i wasnt ready for the difference. Speaking of which, check out the new post i made

Excellent results yes, my ASI174 is very noisy, if I had known (people had spoken about it) I wouldn't have bought that version. I'm stuck with it now


Alexandra

[DeepSolar64]

Very nice results, Simon, but again I always enjoy your work.

[minhlead]

Funny you mentioned drivers, they got a lot better. I tried with the version i had vs the newest version and the newer driver was nice and stable.

I admit that QHY drivers have been questionable over the years but they really have gotten their act together. ZWO also gives source code to the software makers to help out and QHY has recently started to release SDK. A lot of software makers just groan at the fact that there is another set of instructions to program so they tend not to bother and rely on ASCOM which gets passed back to the camera makers.

Player One Cameras have recently gotten ahead of ZWO in software since the original dev team where from ZWO. Their main focus is astro and science is secondary.

I've harped on QHYs case for months and month and they are starting to listen to all of us and make a huge effort. Lets just hope its up from here

Well it depends on whether your camera is newly released or not. The newly released camera is extremely unstable and buggy. I used qhy163, 294, and play with a 16200 for a while and they all exhibit the same buggy driver the few months after release, they release an update to fix a bug just to have another coming up. After the dev decided to leave that particular model alone then it's stable.

[MAURITS]

Nice result Simon.

[Simon2940]

Out of interest, are you using the ASCOM drivers or the native drivers on those cameras? I have the 268M and found that the USB cable makes a difference. I have a longer one that doesnt always work, but the one in the box works every time. The other cable I have is 15ft which im suspecting that the length is the questionable part as I have other devices that have question performance. Example being an SSD drive, when i use a cable over 3ft, i dont get high transfer speeds but when i use the tiny 6" cable, i get the max rating.

Funny you mentioned drivers, they got a lot better. I tried with the version i had vs the newest version and the newer driver was nice and stable.

I admit that QHY drivers have been questionable over the years but they really have gotten their act together. ZWO also gives source code to the software makers to help out and QHY has recently started to release SDK. A lot of software makers just groan at the fact that there is another set of instructions to program so they tend not to bother and rely on ASCOM which gets passed back to the camera makers.

Player One Cameras have recently gotten ahead of ZWO in software since the original dev team where from ZWO. Their main focus is astro and science is secondary.

I've harped on QHYs case for months and month and they are starting to listen to all of us and make a huge effort. Lets just hope its up from here

Well it depends on whether your camera is newly released or not. The newly released camera is extremely unstable and buggy. I used qhy163, 294, and play with a 16200 for a while and they all exhibit the same buggy driver the few months after release, they release an update to fix a bug just to have another coming up. After the dev decided to leave that particular model alone then it's stable.

[EGRAY_OBSERVATORY]

Excellent set of captures Simon.
Quite impressive and with fine detail..

Thanks for sharing
Terry

[minhlead]

Out of interest, are you using the ASCOM drivers or the native drivers on those cameras? I have the 268M and found that the USB cable makes a difference. I have a longer one that doesnt always work, but the one in the box works every time. The other cable I have is 15ft which im suspecting that the length is the questionable part as I have other devices that have question performance. Example being an SSD drive, when i use a cable over 3ft, i dont get high transfer speeds but when i use the tiny 6" cable, i get the max rating.

I use native driver. QHY's ASCOM driver are trash. I got about 2-3 fps with ASCOM driver while 16 fps with native driver ( same res).
And yes, usb cable can make huge differences. Theoretical max length of the USB 3.0/3.1 (which is used on most QHY/ASI camera) is 3m (about 10 feet) (and the limit is 1m -3 feet with USB 3.1 gen 2 which seems to be the case with your SSD) . Any longer than that and you need a repeater or powered cable. So keep the length limited or get a powered hub.

[DavidP]

How does the Basler acA1920-155um compare?

[Simon2940]

Thats really odd that your getting such bad numbers, i've had no issues with native drivers and getting high frames rates. I know that ASCOM has much lower rates since there is no direct command to access or utilize the DDR buffer but i dont think that is a direct fault with the camera or driver, more a limitation with ASCOM in general. Even on my ZWO cameras using ASCOM i never get more than 3 or 4 fps at best.

Im going to look into this, is this issue specific to the 294 or did you get the same issues with other QHY cameras?

Out of interest, are you using the ASCOM drivers or the native drivers on those cameras? I have the 268M and found that the USB cable makes a difference. I have a longer one that doesnt always work, but the one in the box works every time. The other cable I have is 15ft which im suspecting that the length is the questionable part as I have other devices that have question performance. Example being an SSD drive, when i use a cable over 3ft, i dont get high transfer speeds but when i use the tiny 6" cable, i get the max rating.

I use native driver. QHY's ASCOM driver are trash. I got about 2-3 fps with ASCOM driver while 16 fps with native driver ( same res).
And yes, usb cable can make huge differences. Theoretical max length of the USB 3.0/3.1 (which is used on most QHY/ASI camera) is 3m (about 10 feet) (and the limit is 1m -3 feet with USB 3.1 gen 2 which seems to be the case with your SSD) . Any longer than that and you need a repeater or powered cable. So keep the length limited or get a powered hub.

[davidem27]

Hey Simon,
talking about ZWO tilter: does it solve to you Newtonian's rings?
My full disk captures suffer of them and I did not figure out with ZWO tilter...

[Simon2940]

It works for me, and doesnt work for others. The actual trick is to rotate the camera or blocker around until it starts to fade off. Your camera may not be in the dead center of the optical path so rotating the camera can make a difference. Set the tilter to its default position before doing so.

Hey Simon,
talking about ZWO tilter: does it solve to you Newtonian's rings?
My full disk captures suffer of them and I did not figure out with ZWO tilter...

[Simon2940]

Ive never used one before, the closest is the FLIR versions but those cameras are more geared for industrial applications so the software and drivers are not specifically suited for what we do. I believe Alan Friedman uses that camera with great results. Probably best to ask him until i can get my hands on one.

How does the Basler acA1920-155um compare?

[minhlead]

Thats really odd that your getting such bad numbers, i've had no issues with native drivers and getting high frames rates. I know that ASCOM has much lower rates since there is no direct command to access or utilize the DDR buffer but i dont think that is a direct fault with the camera or driver, more a limitation with ASCOM in general. Even on my ZWO cameras using ASCOM i never get more than 3 or 4 fps at best.

Im going to look into this, is this issue specific to the 294 or did you get the same issues with other QHY cameras?

I do not really know. I have never used the QHY163 for hi frame rate application. And I have not tried ascom driver with my qhy294c lately but a few time that I did when I first purchased it at the end of 2019 then this is the case

[Simon2940]

If i find something, I will let you know. I really want everyone to be able to have choice and not be tided to any one specific camera for a specific purpose.

Thats really odd that your getting such bad numbers, i've had no issues with native drivers and getting high frames rates. I know that ASCOM has much lower rates since there is no direct command to access or utilize the DDR buffer but i dont think that is a direct fault with the camera or driver, more a limitation with ASCOM in general. Even on my ZWO cameras using ASCOM i never get more than 3 or 4 fps at best.

Im going to look into this, is this issue specific to the 294 or did you get the same issues with other QHY cameras?

I do not really know. I have never used the QHY163 for hi frame rate application. And I have not tried ascom driver with my qhy294c lately but a few time that I did when I first purchased it at the end of 2019 then this is the case

[Carbon60]

An interesting thread, Simon, and nice comparison.

Stu.