Adding QHY polemaster camera support.

[Terry Fishlock]

Any chance of adding QHL Polemaster camera driver to the list of available cameras? It's basically a QHY 5Lii but that driver does not work with it. 

Driver here  http://www.qhyccd.com/Download.html

Many Thanks

Terry

[peter wolsley]

I'm not an expert...but I did see this on the QHYCCD website

High precision. The pixel resolution of this PoleMaster is approx.. 30arcsec/pixel.  The image sensor itself can be regarded as a good ruler. Much more precise and sensitive than the naked eyes. In best condition, it can get pole precision down to 30 arcsec. 

A resolution of 30"/pixel is not good enough for guiding.  Pixel resolutions need to be less than 10"/pixel.  Most guiding set-ups have pixel resolutions around 1 to 2"/pixel. If the Polemaster does have a QHY5Lii camera then it has a pixel size of 3.75 microns.  For it to only have a resolution of 30"/pixel it must have a focal length of roughly 25mm and a field of view of approx. 8 x 10 degrees.

Peter

[john bartucci]

Just to clarify, 30" is not for guiding, just polar alignment accuracy.  30" should be more than adequate for most people, especially those of us not blessed with permanent installations.  Using a polar scope, I'm lucky to be within several minutes of the pole.

John

[peter wolsley]

John,

I'm still a little puzzled how PHD can be of benefit.  I think we agree that the PoleMaster is not suitable for guiding.  The only other tool built into PHD is it's drift alignment utility.  30" of DEC drift is hugh...you need to have resolution of fractions of an arc-second to be able to detect a PA of 30".  At 40 degrees declination you need to be able to detect a DEC drift rate of 0.5" over 5 minutes to achieve a PA of 30".  Because of this, I would conclude that the PoleMaster is also not suitable for drift aligning.  Since QHYCCD has already written a program to achieve excellent PA using the PoleMaster why should PHD attempt to duplicate it?

The PoleMaster works primarily because, as per their website, it has a hugh 15 x 10 degree field of view.  The PoleMaster is a special service device that appears to work very well at what it is designed to do.  I don't have a permanent installation either and the PoleMaster may well be on my Xmas list.

Peter

[Sander Pool]

I think the idea is to use the pole master as a guide camera. You could either use it as-is with the provided lens or remove the lens and mount the camera on a guide scope. Of course in both cases you would not mount it on the polar axis but next to the imaging scope.

Seems like a good idea to me because once your scope is polar aligned the pole master just sits idle. Why not move it to a different location and then guide with it?

Or maybe this is not what Terry had in mind and he will correct me :)

  Sander

[Terry Fishlock]

Sander, that is exactly my point. Why have two pretty much exactly the same cameras when the polemaster will do both PA and guiding. just remove  the screw on 25 mm lens  attach it to a st80 or other scope and guide with it. 

I would not take much to add the polemaster driver to PHD2.

[Andy Galasso]

On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 3:51 PM, Terry Fishlock <tel...@gmail.com> wrote:

I would not take much to add the polemaster driver to PHD2.

Are you volunteering to do it? We could use the help.

Andy

[peter wolsley]

Terry,

I didn't understand that the PoleMaster can be taken apart,  You would think that QHYCCD would want to market that ability?  Maybe even offer a choice of adapters.  Can the PoleMaster be used with EZplanetary.exe? or any other applications?  It seems odd that one of the existing QHY camera profiles would not work?  QHYCCD needs to offer an ASCOM driver for the PoleMaster.

Peter

[Rich Barlow]

I would love to learn how to do it . . . I'm assuming all of the code is up at Github right?  Can we use QHY's binary blob driver and wedge it in somehow?

[Andy Galasso]

Rich,

Yes, the source code is at GitHub, and the build instructions for Windows, Linux and OSX are in the Wiki.

Andy

[John Stiner]

Having just installed a Pole Master last night (two minutes to install adapter and two minutes to PA mount), this is a fantastic idea. For simple folk like me who can't seem to master OAG guiding (finding guidestar, achieving focus, and a shadow on my full frame sensor), assuming you could figure out how to attach the Pole Master to the OTA, wouldn't this eliminate the need for a guide scope and associated weight and flexure? The Pole Master easily detaches from the mount after PA, and if you could then easily attach to the OTA, would sound like a great idea for something whose cost is comparable to say a StarShoot.

[bw_msgboard]

What's the image scale on the PoleMaster? The web literature I've seen
suggests it's 30 a-s/px. If so, that isn't going to cut it as a guide
camera for most setups.

Bruce

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[John Stiner]

Unclear on that one. The documentation that came with it is minimal.

[bw_msgboard]

From the QHY web site:

 

 

Since you have the camera, you could just capture an image and plate-solve it to find out.  Judging from its intended use, my guess is that the image scale is huge.

 

Bruce

 

-----Original Message-----
From: open-phd...@googlegroups.com [mailto:open-phd...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Stiner
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2016 2:04 PM
To: Open PHD Guiding

--

[Bryan]

Tracked down the following for the PM

Focal=25mm F1.2
X=1280
Y=960
PIXEL SIZE=3.75UM

IS = 8 * pixel pitch in microns/focal length in inches = 8*3.75/1 = 30 pixels per a-s

Bryan

[Jan Erik Johansen]

I would really love it if you guys were able to give PHD driver support for the Polemaster. I currently have both the QHY5L-II-M and the Polemaster, and while i normally use the 5L for guiding, i've more and more recently started using it for long exposure deep sky - but this leaves me without a guide camera. I've attempted to force different drivers for  the Polemaster, but with no luck.

[bw_msgboard]

Hi Jan.  As you can see from the earlier messages in the thread, the Polemaster appears to be a very poor choice for a guide camera – that’s not what it’s intended for.  With a resolution of something like 30 arc-sec/px, the guiding performance would be very poor.  I think you’d be better off with a solution that employs a focal length of 150mm or more, at least.

 

Bruce

 

---

From: Jan Erik Johansen [mailto:dj_j...@hotmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2016 1:48 PM
To: Open PHD Guiding
Cc: stinerjohn@gmail.com; bw_m...@earthlink.net
Subject: Re: [open-phd-guiding] Re: Adding QHY polemaster camera support.

I would really love it if you guys were able to give PHD driver support for the Polemaster. I currently have both the QHY5L-II-M and the Polemaster, and while i normally use the 5L for guiding, i've more and more recently started using it for long exposure deep sky - but this leaves me without a guide camera. I've attempted to force different drivers for  the Polemaster, but with no luck.

lørdag 22. oktober 2016 07.14.48 UTC+2 skrev Bryan følgende:

Tracked down the following for the PM

 

Focal=25mm F1.2
X=1280
Y=960
PIXEL SIZE=3.75UM

 

IS = 8 * pixel pitch in microns/focal length in inches = 8*3.75/1 = 30 arc-sec/px

[Jan Erik Johansen]

Hi Bruce. I'm aware of the low 30 arc-sec/px with the stock lens, but i have both C/CS-mount to EF and OM adapters, so using a 150-250mm lens for guiding with the polemaster will not be of any issue. Replacing the stock 25mm lens takes not even 10 sec (focus setting of the 25mm lens is locked with a screw and will not be changed when taking ot off/on). I believe you also get C/CS adapters for most finderscopes. Also, when i use the QHY5L for long exposure with a 50mm to 250mm lens the 25mm polemaster lens should be enough and make a great mini-guider. It's really only the driver support that's the problem here. At least for me... :)

Jan Erik

[bw_msgboard]

Hi Jan.  Maybe someone else will volunteer to do this work or maybe you’ll decide to do it yourself.  Adding camera support in PHD2 can create a significant support burden going forward even if the initial development goes well.  Speaking purely for myself, I don’t think it’s worth doing for a marginal device like this when there are so many other alternatives.

 

Good luck,

[Andy Galasso]

The easiest way for the camera to be supported is if the camera manufacturer provides an ASCOM driver (Windows) or INDI driver (Linux).  If you can convince QHY to add support for the polemaster camera in their ASCOM driver, then no changes to PHD2 are needed.

I would recommend contacting QHY and requesting that they add support for the polemaster camera in their ASCOM driver, or provide a new ASCOM driver for the polemaster camera.   Adding camera support is not something we can do without support from the manufacturer.

Andy

[Jan Erik Johansen]

I forgot to update with my findings here, but I've recently found out you can in fact use the polemaster with both APT and PHD2 with the latest ASCOM "capture" driver QHY provides for the QHY5L-II. Nowhere do they state the polemaster is supported in this driver, but it is. Note the polemaster it's not supported in the "guide" version of the ASCOM driver.

However, this open up for another possibility as well, since i can now use this for long exposure (works with APT, but firecapture and sharpcap for example are unable to do more then 60 sec), i won't really need to use it for guiding while capturing with the 5L-II.
They are basically the same cameras, just one have an ST4 guide port, so now i can guide like normal with the 5L-II and ST4 port, while capturing with the polemaster. transforming the polemaster to a capture camera takes only a few sec.
My polemaster in PHD2:

And my polemaster with a 1,25" adapter and IR filter:

[Christopher Madson]

Ops tested to work.  Problem is this relies on a specific ASCOM driver (v1.44).  Who knows how long that'll work for us.  It's unfortunate there isn't interest in using it as it would save people from needing two $300 cameras.

I tried it with a 50mm CCTV lens... results weren't amazing; but I can totally put a nosepiece on it and use it with a finder guider rig.  Camera is pretty clean/sensitive.  I initially tried the WDM driver... it wasn't very good at all. The 'capture' driver as he describes above and in his thread on Star Lounge was GTG.

Chris

[Chris Madson]

What are you working on these days?

Sent from my iPhone

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[Jan Erik Johansen]

I've been experimenting a bit more, and i can confirm they have indeed removed support for the Polemaster in the 1.50.1 ASCOM "Capture" and "Guide" driver. It doesn't say anything about this in the change-log.
I did experience significantly increased stability with the 1.50.1 driver with my QHY5L-II though, but i couldn't find any real difference between the "Capture" and the "Guide" driver, so my solution have been to now use the 1.44 "Capture" driver and the 1.50.1 "Guide" driver, and instead use the "Guide" driver for capturing with the 5L-II.

Changing  driver support like this without saying a word about it, releasing a mix of stable/unstable drivers, and not having the latest/proper drivers easily available on the homepage is probably what will make me go for a different brand in the future. QHY may have decent hardware for a low price, but the guy really need to stop messing so much with the drivers. What does he have to loose if a handful of people want to use the Polemaster for imaging/guiding also? "If it ain't broken, don't fix it"...

Anyway, i've had success with both polar alignment, imaging and guiding with the Polemaster with the proper drivers, so i'll simply keep a copy of my older drivers and use them. :)

[Gilbert]

Hi Jan, 

I just came across this thread and I would LOVE a copy of that 1.44 driver if you still have it.

Thanks!

Gilbert

[mj.w...@gmail.com]

An alternative approach I've seen is to take a standard CS mount QHY5L-II, screw on a 25mm lens, and use the Polemaster-Emulator software.

Or just use your guidescope and the new Static Polar Alignment tool in PHD2  2.6.4dev4, this gets my LX200 GPS's PA down to 5 arc-mins.

Michael

Wiltshire UK