QHY-6: Problem with image capturing with PHD2

[Andreas S.]

Dear all,

PHD2 does seem to have problems acquiring images from the camera. To track down my problems I have made some experiments using PHD2 Guiding 2.5.0, current QHY drivers and ASCOM Platform 6.1SP1. Pls see attached pictures. One was aquired thru the same software stack using SharpCap, the other one thru PDH2. Why is the pic in PHD2 so much worse. Also, if i modify the exposure time in PDH2 it will capture the same picture with 0,2s and with 2s exposure time.???
With SharpCap everything looks reasonable.

Any ideas how I can track this problem down? No hints from the Debug-Log (although I cannot claim that I do understand all the details). Also no hints from ASCOM Diagnostics.

Many thanks for any hints
 Andy

[Andreas S.]

Sorry for forgetting the attachments....

[Andy Galasso]

Hi Andy,

We are in the process of integrating a new driver library from QHY. Could you please repeat your testing using the build referenced in this thread. You should be able to connect the camera as "QHY5-II" even though it is not a QHY5-II.

Also, it's hard to evaluate screenshots. You can use File => Save image to save the raw image data. That is more useful than a screen shot. I'm not sure if sharpcap has a similar function to save the raw image.

I'm pretty sure SharpCap accesses the camera as a WDM webcam, so for a true apples-to-apples comparison, you should connect to the camera in PHD2 as a WDM Webcam (not ASCOM).   However, I am also interested in seeing how the camera behaves when connected through the native driver (connect as QHY5-II camera, not ASCOM).

Thanks,

Andy

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[Andreas S.]

Hey Andy,

thanks for your ideas. I can test  new PHD-build tomorrow and will let you know the results. Then I can also work on reproduction of the picture data for better analysis.

Here are some results the from tonight's experiments:

Until now I have used the old QHY6 driver ( QHY6 IO Driver V11-8-14) which does not support  Native WDM, so the pictures were both taken with ASCOM Driver support. I'm pretty sure about that both screenshots were taken with ASCOM support.

I have experimented with the QHY5II driver (151028) and used it as native drivers for the QHY6. After installing and changing the windows driver, SharpCap will offer a new QHY Camera (Native WDM) for selection. However, I was not able to capture a single frame after selecting and also had some strange effects in the menus.So this does not work.  PHD, when selecting a WDM-Camera, also offers the QHY-camera for selection. However, as soon as I try to connect, PHD crashes.

Maybe this answers some of your questions. 

Thanks

 Andy

[Andy Galasso]

Andy,

Thanks for the info.  We are more interested in getting the new SDK to work since it presumably fixes some if not all of these issues. We are in contact with the developers at QHY, so if you experience any problems with the new SDK we can forward that information to QHY.

Andy

[Andreas S.]

Hey Andy
thanks for your support. I have used the 2.5.0dev7qhytest5 build for a couple of nights now. The good news is that the problem does not show up with this build. It seems to be resolved. The old QHY6 drivers worked perfectly with the new build.
Andy

[bw_msgboard]

Thanks for reporting back, Andy.  Andy G is travelling right now, but I know he’ll be glad to hear this.

 

Bruce

 

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