QHY5LIII 174 -PHD2 no image

[Alruckle]

        Hello,  I am hoping to get some help with my new QHY5LIII 174 m   to display an image in PHD2 2.6.4.  With the recent updates listing the QHY5LIII cameras in the Camera Pull Down Menu, I decided to purchase the QHY5LIII 174 camera for guiding, due to the larger CMOS chip, the excellent QE of the camera and the 1 1/4" form factor.  I have two MacPro laptop computers that I have been trying to get it working.  

      I can get the camera to connect and give me the green indicator in the setup assistant, When clicking on the icon to get the pixel size of the CMOS chip it returns the proper value.  I take this as connected.    However when I click the icon to start looping camera images the window stays blank.  Upon checking more closely the left lower corner of the camera output image window the word Looping is displayed.   Other than no image of stars to guide on, everything looks like it is working properly.

While trying to figure out what I could be doing wrong, I downloaded SharpCap QT from the QHYCCD website, figuring that would demonstrate the camera would connect to the Mac,   No Go.   

Is there someone out there that has the QHY5LIII M camera working with PHD2 on a Mac?  If so was there anything unique about the install that got it working?

Thank you for your help in advance

Al

[Andy Galasso]

Al,

From your description, we can say for sure that PHD2 is connecting to and communicating with the camera, so we'll need to do some further diagnosis of why you are seeing no image.

The first question should be what do we mean by "no image"?  Is the camera output entirely zeroes (no hot pixels, no noise, nothing)?  Or is the camera giving some data but there are no guide stars visible?

I would start by adjusting the gamma slider at the bottom of the phd2 main window to see if that makes a difference. The slider controls the aggressiveness of PHD2's histogram stretch.  Another way to look at this would be to save a camera frame (menu File > Save Image) and open it in your image processing software and use the stretch function there to inspect the camera frame.  You could also post the camera frame in this forum and we could take a look at it.

In any case, it would be a good idea to post your phd2 debug log for us to look at. There is some information there regarding the camera output that may give us a clue for what to look at next.

Andy

[mahaffm]

Hi Al,

I'm currently using the QHY5III174m camera with with a HD11 scope and OAG with PHD2 but not with a mac. The only time i had an issue with not displaying any stars in PHD2 with my setup and this camera was when I was first setting up the OAG spacing. If you are too far out of focus you will not see any stars. Only a few mm different makes a huge difference of being able to pickup stars via the OAG and not seeing any. Just wondering if this might be your issue. When I had this issue i placed a bright light source, flashlight, in front of the scope to see if I was able to see something and when I did I was able to see that light was getting through and the camera was working. From there I figured it was a matter of getting the correct spacing worked out between the imaging camera and the OAG camera. Not sure if this is what you are experiencing but thought I would let you know what I had to do. Using a bright light source at least let me know the camera was connected and working.

Regards,
Mark

[Alruckle]

Andy,

          I thank you for your response and appreciate your help.   Your posts answering questions for others on this group have also been very helpful and educational.

  I am attaching two PHD2 Dbug logs.   At the time I was setting up the QHY5 III. 174 camera I was sitting inside my house, I had attached a 1" fl   ƒ1.4  security camera lens to the camera.  I had adjusted the gain slider in PHD2 both directions to the fullest extent possible.  the PHD2 image view screen remained completely dark there was zero illumination of any pixel in the viewing area.    

I hope the attached logs will provide the information needed to reveal what is going wrong with the QHY5 III as connected to PHD2. 

alruckle

[Andy Galasso]

Al,

Thanks for including the debug logs.  They show that the camera is stuck and not returning any data to PHD2.  PHD2 tells the driver (SDK) to start the exposure, but the driver never responds (neither success nor failure, it just hangs.)

Here are some things you can try:

 - if you have any USB hubs or extenders, remove them and connect the camera directly to the computer

 - try using a different USB port on the computer

 - try swapping the the USB cable

 - see if the camera works on another computer

 - see if the camera works with QHY's EZCAP_QT for Mac

You may need to contact QHY support and see if they can offer any advice.

Andy

[Alruckle]

Andy,   Thank you again for your attention to my problem with the QHY5 III and compatibility with the Mac.

    1.   I connected the camera to three different Mac computers.    Mac Pro with MacOs High Sierra, 13" MacBook Pro with MacOs  Sierra,  and a 15" MacBook pro (retina display)  with MacOs El Capitan,  With each computer the camera was connected directly to the computer.

   2.   With each computer the camera was tried using two different USB ports.

   3.   I did try the camera with two different USB cables on the 13" MacBook Pro.

   4.  I located a Windows PC to test it with and it does work nicely,  however PHD2 with the camera starts up much slower than my ZWO 120MM S. 

   5.   I did download the EZcap QT program from QHY and tried it with the 15" MacBook Pro.   It did not connect.  After receiving your Post,  I downloaded EZcap QT on my 2013 Mac Pro and tried it out,  It did not work on that either. 

I will contact QHY Forums and see what they see.

AlRuckle

[Daniel S]

I am have the same exact issue, I opened a support ticket with QHY directly earlier today.

Works perfectly on my Windows 10 desktop but not on my Macbook Pro (High Sierra 10.13)

PHD2 is able to connect the guider, detect the model, and even the pixel size but cannot pull any image data from it.

Are there any workarounds? Oddly enough, same issue when I tried using a VMware with W10, but it did work on a real Windows 10 desktop. 

[Alruckle]

Daniel S,

      I arranged to try Parallels with Windows 7 on a 15" Retina MacBook Pro.  Camera worked great once it was connected.  It took a couple of tries before it would recognize the camera.

aruckle

[Alruckle]

Daniel,
I returned the QHY5III 174 because the time to return it was running out and there was no response from QHYccd that anything was happening. I saw news that ZWO had recently released a 1 ¼” format very similar to the QHY5III 174 m, but the body length is shorter. So I ordered one. I received it last Saturday then tested it that night and Sunday night. It is fully compatible with PHD2 on the Mac. I had it running without issue on My 15” Retna, and 13” MacBook Pro laptops and my Mac Pro 2013 Desktop computer.

I have not yet tried it on a capture program, but that is not what it for.

aruckle

[Brian Valente]

I don't know much about QHY support but ZWO is pretty responsive to customers, including their user forums (available through their website).

That being said, my QHY 5L-II is working like a charm for my guiding, haven't had any issues


Thanks

Brian


Brian Valente
Brianvalentephotography.com

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