QHYCCD QHY163 Manual de usuario
QHY163С
COLDMOS Astronomy Camera
User Manual
REV.1.1
Contents
01
PACKAGE CONTENTS.........................................................................................3
03
SOFTWARE INSTALLATION................................................................................4
04
USE QHY163M IN SHARPCAP ............................................................................6
05
COLOR BALANCE FOR QHY163C ......................................................................9
06
USE QHY163C WITH ASCOM............................................................................11
07
USE QHY163C IN EZCAP_QT ...........................................................................13
08
USE QHY168C IN FIRECAPTURE.....................................................................16
09
USE BROADCAST VIDEO STREAMING............................................................17
10
QHY163C COLOR WHEEL CONTROL PORT ...................................................18
11
QHY163C GUIDE PORT CABLE RJ11 PIN SEQUENCE...................................18
12
FAQ.....................................................................................................................19
13
CAMERA MAINTENANCE..................................................................................22
15
OHY163C MECHANICAL SIZE...........................................................................23
16
SPECIFICATIONS...............................................................................................26
17
REVISION HISTORY...........................................................................................27
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01
Package Contents
USB3.0 cable(1.5m)
1
Self-locking power cable
1
6pin guide cable
1
Car power adapter
1
Drying tube
1
Desiccant
1
M42/1.25inch adaptor
1
Driver download card
1
Inspection report
1
Camera
1
Optional accessories
12V power adapter + power cable
1
C-adapter lens mount
1
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03
Software Installation
1.Download and install ASCOM platform
2.Download and install the Camera Driver
3.Download and install the ASCOM Driver
As you most probably want to use your QHY163C as an expose camera, please download the Capture
version. If you want to use it as a guide camera, please download the Guide version.
4. QHY163C camera uses SharpCap as the default capture software. Please download SharpCap.
QHY163C camera can run on SharpCap 2.9 or later versions
Note that QHY168M requires the latest qhyccd.dll for the new version of SharpCap, and QHYCCD has
alreadydevelopeda softwarenamed SharpCap Patchfor it. Youshould downloadandinstall it prior
to using SharpCap.
5. Connect QHY163C to your PC with USB3.0 cable. For the first time the system will find a new device
and search the driver. Youcan skip the online searching by clicking "Skip obtaining driver software from
Windows Update" and the computer will find the drivers. After installation is complete successfully, you
can find the device in the device manager as shown in the picture below.
6.QHYCCD has developed a software named UpdateCheck that can check if the drivers installed on
your computer are the latest versions as well as update the drivers if needed. If the status of some driver
is “Need Update”, you can directly download its update package in this software freeing you from the
inconvenience of looking for and downloading it from our website.
Take QHY367C for example, you can see the drivers we need are the latest versions and don’t need to
be updated as shown in the following picture.
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Note that after you downloading and installing the new drivers by using this software, be sure to pull the
USB cable out and then plug it in to enable the new drivers.
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04
Use QHY163M in SharpCap
1. Connect your QHY163C to 12V power supply. Connect your QHY163C to your computer with USB3.0
cable
2. Run SharpCap. If the aforementioned software and drivers all have been installed properly, the video
image will appear automatically and you will see the frame rate at the lower-left corner of the software
as shown below
3. If you have started the SharpCap before connecting camera to your PC. You can click menu-
>cameras->rescan for cameras to search the camera and check on the camera name (QHY163C in this
case).
4. To make sure the camera can run properly, the software will start the camera at the lowest speed,
which makes the frame rate much lower than the highest frame rate declared on its webpage. Now you
can try to get the most out of it by changing several settings. First you can try to set the exposure time
to 1ms, then try to reduce the "USB traffic" value. For modern computer with i7-4 core, it should get the
max performance. But please note that not all computers can get the best performance due to various
reasons such as the CPU loading, the saving-energy mode setting, the mainboard performance and
USB3.0 port performance. Sometimes the display size may also impede obtaining the best performance.
So you can try to use the "Zoom" function to reduce the display size to see if it helps. Normally speaking
the QHY163C can get more than 15FPS @ full 20mega resolution.
The debayer may take the CPU time and sometimes it will limit the frame rate. You can use the RAW8
mode and select debayer OFF to get faster.
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5. Adjust the offset. When you block the light thoroughly, you may find that the image is not really "zero"
(entirely black). Sometimes this will lower the quality of image contrast. You can adjust the offset to make
the histogram peak close to zero in order to get a better background. You can open the histogram to
confirm that.
QHY163C is a color camera, so it is very important to set the offset to a low value and make the histogram
peak close to zero. Because the color camera color balance is multiple a ratio to the pixel value in the FPGA.
The bias will be multiple too and it may affect the color balance.
6. If you want to try 16bit image, you can switch the Colour Space to "RAW16".
7. By check the "LX" mode you can expand the exposure setting range and take long exposure shot.
QHY163C camera has the anti-amp light control circuit and it can reduce the amplifier glow significantly.
Note that it's impossible to reduce the glow in the corner thoroughly, and it's normal to see a very small
amount of glow in the corner when you do long exposure.
A typical long exposure image in +25℃, 5 sec exposure and 50% gain of QHY163C is shown below.
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8. After you connect 12V power supply for QHY163C to power the TEC cooling circuit, you can set
the CMOS sensor cooling temperature in the “Thermal Controls” section in SharpCap as shown in the
following picture.
Basically, you can control the temperature of CMOS by either adjusting “Cooler Power” or clicking “Auto”
and adjusting “Target Temperature”. You can also see the CMOS temperature at lower-left corner of the
software.
Before use this function, you should read the content about how to protect the cooler in the FAQ section.
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05
Color Balance for QHY163C
SharpCap will start at the default RGB balance for color camera. Here is the screenshot of the QHY163C
start up
For color camera, SharpCap will show the WB Red/Green/Blue progress bar.
Since the color balance is the ratio between Red to Green and Blue to Green. You can fix the Green color
to 128 and adjust the Red and Blue.
For example, in the image above the blue is 188 and red is 196, green is 128. It looks the image is well
white balanced. If you need more blue, since it has limit of 255. In this condition, you can reduce the
green a little and you will have more room for the ratio.
As we said before, if you are doing planetary imaging you should set the offset value as low as possible.
To make the background close to zero. Then you can easy to get correct color balance. Otherwise it will
not easy to get it. Sometimes the offset of an image is good but you cannot get good balance.
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The reason is that the Color balance is a ratio of the RGB sensitivity difference. So we use a ratio to
multiply the RGB value and get it done. But if there is a bias exist. The ratio will not be correct. For
example, the G sensitivity is the double of R sensitivity.
G=2R In order to get white balance. We multiply a ratio of 2 to R
R'=2R= G so we get R=G
When a bias exist. The bias is a constant added to each pixel. So the image you see is:
R''=R + bias
G' '= G + bias = 2R+bias
Now the ratio R'': G''= (R+bias) / (2R+bias) and it is not equal to 1:2. It shows the bias will affect the true
value of the R:G. And the ratio of R:G will vary when the image light changed. It is hard to correct with a
fixed ratio.
But for DSO capture, you should keep the offset above zero and avoid the background being cut off. A
background from 1000-5000 is a good value (16bit mode) for DSO imaging.
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