QHY5 and HDCap: "Open Camera Error"

[astrophil]

Hello,

I am using a QHY5 camera for autoguiding and lunar images (see http://salzgeber.at/astro/moon/20090205/ and http://salzgeber.at/astro/moon/20090202/). But when capturing an AVI using QGVideo I often get frames, with a bright lower part.

I was advised to use HDCap to resolve this issue,  but until now I was not able to use HDCap. When clicking on "Control -> Connect" menu entry, I get an error saying "Open Camera Error"

Any ideas what could cause this? PHDGuide and QGVideo can connect to the camera just fine. I am using Windows XP on HP Compaq nc6400 laptop.

thx for any suggestions,

Philipp

[tvdeede]

Philipp,

in order to use HDCap, you'll have to remove the existing drivers from the PC and install the ones supplied on the QHYCCD website.  The System drivers are completely different so incopatible.

regards

Tom

[astrophil]

Hi,

thanks for the quick reply, but how do I uninstall the existing drivers? I tried to uninstall them using the "Add/Remove programs" feature of Windows, but they are still found when I reconnect the camera. I also tried to uninstall the drivers using the device manager, but it didn't work.

Any ideas?

thx

Philipp

[astrophil]

I also removed all registry keys referring to anything qhy5, and all the files in the c:\Windows folder and it's subfolders which have qhy in their name. Of course I have restarted the computer numerous times. Now when run install.bat which copies the inf and sys files to the system folders and I connect the camera it is recognized as a new USB device, a driver "QHY5 Base Driver (September 24th)" is installed, but then a "Files Needed" window comes up which says: "The file `QHY5Base5.sys´ on QHY5 Driver Installation (September, 24th) is needed. But this file is in any of the directories downloaded from qhyccd.com... any ideas?

[astrophil]

would PHDGuide work with the drivers necessary for HDCap?

[tvdeede]

Hi Philipp,

No,  Only HDCap would work with that driver.

regards
Tom

[astrophil]

ok, thanks for the update.

I uninstalled the HDCap drivers and reinstalled Tom's (?) drivers.

While PHDGuide is happy again, I must probably learn to live with the overexposed bottom parts of some of the captured images, and delete the images.

thx,

Philipp

[tvdeede]

I'll have a look at the brighter bottom problem.  This is due to some delay somewhere, I just need to figure out where it sits.

I have not much spare to look into this problem but I'll try to get it solved.
Once above 70 or 80 ms the problem should not be there is that correct?

regards
Tom

[astrophil]

until now I have not tried with longer exposures, as I am trying to get the shortest possible exposure for my moon images.

Maybe I will find the time to try and test with various exposure times.

thx for the support!

Philipp

[astrophil]

Hi,

I did some quick tests, taking 50 images (through the transparent eyepiece cap) with varying exposure times and gain settings...

These are typical images for each of a series of 50. The images were heavily stretched in contrast, some images have a really bright lower part, on most of the images the effect is more subtle. None of the images with 80ms exposure had a brighter lower part. When taking images of real objects (and not the inside of a translucent eyepiece cap) I assume that only the images where the lower part is really bright are being recognized, but in effect all images have this issue.


5ms exposure - I don't know what is causing this horizontal pattern, probably the gain which was very high.


10ms exposure


20ms exposure


50ms exposure


80ms exposure