Hi All,

I just tested out a new 3.2 megapixel cooled one shot color CCD camera made by QHY in China. It is basically the SAC-10 camera offered by SAC Imaging here in the USA.

I bought my camera used from a guy in Beijing, China, he upgraded to a bigger QHY 6303 camera.

I took this image last night in my backyard observatory in the
city of Dayton, Ohio, USA.

The city lights are very bad in my backyard...and I had also had high cirrus clouds going through occasionally.

But the M57 image cleaned up well.....

Taken with QHY 3.2 Megapixel, 1560x 2140 array, 3.4u x3.4u pixel color CCD(SAC-10), Sony Interline HAD 5/8" CCD with built in electronic shutter, 2 stage thermal electric cooling. USB download pretty fast (4 sec) at full 48 bit full res color images,(16 bit per color), shoots in RAW,RGB Fits formats!

It operates via a plugin for Maxim DL, Nebulosity, and a native QHY software package. QHY are working on a plugin for CCDsoft as well.

The ccd's small 3.4 micron square pixels are great for wide angle small scopes and lenses....but is very unforgiving when it comes to longer focal lengths at high power....seeing must be decent & your tracking must be spot on or use an autoguider, otherwise tracking errors & trailing will be very noticeable.

I had neither on my backyard 10" LX200 SCT...so I just took short exposures of 30 seconds each and stacked 39 of them....Also this help with keeping the ambient light down a bit from shooting in a city.

10" (.25-m) F6.3 SCT LX200 Telescope,
M57 The Ring Nebula.....30sec x 39 images,(19.5 minutes), NO dark frames used, stacked only via drizzle in Nebulosity.

Processed in Adobe Photoshop to adjust for color balance due to
city lights and city light gradient removal using GradientXT by Crowman.

Warning!!!! Each full color image is about 18 megabytes. You'll need a fast PC, USB 2.0, & harddrive with plenty of space. I easily took over 3 gigs of images in my short ~2 hour observing session. My laptop barely kepted up...I saved the processing of all the data for my faster desktop with 2 gigs of memory.

I will try the camera again later at my Dark Sky site in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

This maybe an affordable 3.2meg(~$950 from SAC imaging) high res "one shot" color imager for most widefield imagers, even city astronomers can get good images with a little processing skill.

The image of M57 could be better,...but for my first time out with the New CCD and under the city and sky conditions....it shows real promise!

Here is some more info on there site....it has both Chinese and English versions of the site....as well as a message board.....even if you can't read the chinese message board, ....wait for the pictures to load, its worth a look, as the photos are universal!!!

http://amateur.lamost.org/qhy/

this is the SAC site here in the USA
SAC Imaging USA site http://www.sac-imaging.com/main.html

I don't personally know anyone the folks at either place...but I am impressed with there low cost high res cameras and they are currently designing a 35mm full frame chip camera too.(similiar chip as SBIG 11000 series)

Hopefully this will help those looking to upgrade from a DSI or other sub megapixel cameras.

Clear Skies to All!!!!

Attached Images

M57_QHY_Chumackweb.jpg (102.3 KB, 80 views)

__________________
Best Regards,
John Chumack
The Chumack Observatories
MPC 838 Dayton Research Station
MPC H66 Yellow Springs Research Station
www.galacticimages.com

Hi John nice photo of m-57 sounds like its a good camera. thanks

You know, there are many fine research photo's out there taken with high dollar cameras through big telescopes by professionals.

They don't compare to taken it yourself, do they?

Good job. I haven't guided a scope in 21 years now when I took an Astronomy Photography class. I still shiver from some of the nights sitting and guiding the scope on relatively short exposures. I just wish I could find my dang pictures. I had the only in focus shot of a galaxy, though I don't remember which one, it was one of our longest exposures. It also is the only one where an airplane cuts right through the center. If only I could have closed the apeture for 10 seconds, but the scope/camera wasn't set up that way.

Nice image, John.. I've heard about these cameras and it's great to see someone with skill using them and putting them through their paces.

It does show promise!

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Mike
. mikesalway.com.au - Astronomy and Photography by Mike Salway
. IceInSpace - The Australian Amateur Astronomy Community
. My Bio | My Jupiter 2007 Gallery | My Image Gallery

Outstanding work John!

Well done!

Oooh, pretty!

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Yes nice image!!!

Clear sky

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George Tarsoudis
Alexandroupolis, Greece
http://www.flickr.com/photos/80161946@N00/?saved=1

That's very interesting John and would you please continue to post any further results with this camera

I almost bought it last year from Qhy but since I had not seen any decent results with it wimped out in the end..unfortunately the images posted on Qhy's website dont inspire a lot of confidence

from your description it appears very promising-and a real alternative to a DSLR

A very good shot of m57, the camera seems pretty good for a one shot. well done.

I agree, the shots on the suppliers website does not inspire one, however, I checked out all the links and the darks looked pretty good. What appeals to me is the decent image size. StarShoot, DSI etc are fine but their images are too small for publication by the time one gets to a 300 DPI for the printer. On the other side, the SBIG etc are too expensive. Best option is maybe a cooled DSLR.

Regards and thanks for posting the image and details, much appreciated.

Shevill - Tasmania 42 South

Hi All,

Thanks for the comments...I will defintely post more results from this camera, as soon as the weather clears here.......it has been nothing but overcast or rain for the last 5 days.

__________________
Best Regards,
John Chumack
The Chumack Observatories
MPC 838 Dayton Research Station
MPC H66 Yellow Springs Research Station
www.galacticimages.com

Really nice!

It's brillient, great image

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If this writing is blue you're going too fast!