Well, the New Mexico monsoons ended and here's an image of NGC 6946, the "fireworks" galaxy, a face-on spiral galaxy in Cepheus. ?Despite having a stellar population of only about 1/2 that of our Milky Way, it has a high rate of new star formation and is classed as an active starburst galaxy. ?The "fireworks" sobriquet stems from its production of 10 observed supernovae in the past century, roughly 10x as many as that of the Milky Way. ?Various "peculiar" objects associated with the galaxy have attracted the attention of astronomers over the years, and two of them can be seen in this image. ?"Hodge's object" is the name given to the bright blue object at the 11:00 position and the "red ellipse" appears at the end of the long spiral arm at the 1:00 position. ?Hodge's object has recently been conjectured to be an interacting dwarf galaxy superimposed on the disk of NGC 6946, and the red ellipse may be some kind of super bubble or very large supernova remnant - it is huge by any standard.? This rendition intentionally corrected for the reddening of the galaxy from dust in our galaxy - with an "as-seen" color balance, the colors in the spiral arms are very subdued.
?
Data capture occurred over a 3-night period in September for a total LRGB integration of 18.3 hours.
?
?
Thanks for looking,
Bruce W.
|
Re: QSI 700 series cameras in stock and available now.
On Wed, Sep 11, 2024 at 11:27 AM, ZackD wrote:
The 455 chips are manufactured with 2 dies so you are seeing the evidence of that when you push the stretch. It will calibrate out with proper calibration files.?
Thanks for the confirmation. I suspected that might be the case, but didn't want to assert anything when Google was being useless trying to confirm it. I'm honestly somewhat impressed at how well the output is matched between the two halves. I didn't think the variability was quite low enough they could get away with this just yet.?
?
The reason I went with the QSI was somewhat on impulse. I was trying to decide between QHY and Moravian, and was chatting with the owner of Cloud Break about it. He mentioned that QSI was coming out with an IMX455, which was going to be considerably cheaper than Moravian, and with the dealer being in driving distance, I at least had someone nearby to who would be willing to try to help if there were problems.
?
So far, I'm pretty happy with the camera. The biggest concern to me is the poor behavior of the driver when there are USB communication issues (returning the same frame endlessly is worse than erroring out). Better integration with NINA is I think the biggest feature ask I have, and it looks doable with the existing SDK. ?
?
?
|
Re: QSI 700 series cameras in stock and available now.
Thanks for the follow up with raw images, I really appreciate it to gleam some insight on these cameras.?
The 455 chips are manufactured with 2 dies so you are seeing the evidence of that when you push the stretch. It will calibrate out with proper calibration files.?
|
Re: QSI 700 series cameras in stock and available now.
It's a week late, but I finally got some time to do some rough processing of the first light tests. A couple caveats with this data though. This was the first capture session with a new Mini-PC which hit the usual first session glitches. So tracking isn't where I normally like it, and only got about an hour of luminance data before I got clouded out in light polluted skies. I am also aware that I need to dial in the spacing on my flattener, although I am not even sure this scope/flattener combo can do full frame. I need to experiment more.
?
I've made a few files available on Dropbox and the final uncropped result on Astrobin. The integrated dark frame (20 180s darks), a single dark frame, and the integrated flat I used for the luminance data, along with the final JPEG out of Affinity Photo. The reason I included the flat is that there's a clear "seam" that shows up when you aggressively stretch the flat, right down the middle of the sensor. It looks like there's something about the sensor design that produces this? Did Sony split some electronics up as pixel density increased on these large sensors? I'm not even sure it's prominent enough to worry about, but flats should calibrate it out regardless.
?
Astrobin:
?
Dropbox:
?
|
Re: QSI 700 series cameras in stock and available now.
Hello @Nyturne and Rebel,
Thank you for purchasing and the feedback on the QSI760 cameras, there have been a few sold now so you will now see more people using them.
?
There is a manual and drawings on the QSI website that you can find here if you haven¡¯t already seen them.
?
The power socket for these cameras is the larger 2.5 mm centered pin, when used with the right-angled power connector will give a solid power connection to the camera.
?
Very sorry to hear about the experience with the screws and washers coming loose in transit, we will investigate improving the packaging.
?
Our software team is already looking at the reported issues with NINA and we will get a fix for those. Hopefully, we can look at further integrating into NINA shortly.
?
Concerning USB3 cables, we have indeed observed that not all cables meet the required specifications. For this reason, we only supply USB3 leads that we know are reliable and work without issues.
?
Good luck with the first light tests and please let us know how you get on, we are very excited about these cameras and look forward to your thoughts.
?
Thanks
Vince ?
|
Re: QSI 700 series cameras in stock and available now.
?
The Eagle 2.1mm power cable has a very tight fit to the 760's power plugin.? It works but I was worrying that I was going to bend the center shaft.? Definitely don't have to worry about a power cable without the locking screw falling out.
The power cable that comes with the 760 is a 2.5mm ID, not sure how you got a 2.1mm ID to fit?
?
I very much hope QSI will develop a native driver for NINA and be able to not worry about ASCOM drivers.
Getting back to this, I find it interesting that:
A) The QSI Demo app doesn't use ASCOM for the driver.
B) The latest Windows/Linux SDKs from Aug 5th appear to include the same library that the demo app uses.
?
Such a thing?seems doable with the SDK that was provided this month, but I haven't tried to write anything against it to confirm that.?
?
I'll probably have some first light stuff together this weekend.
|
Re: QSI 700 series cameras in stock and available now.
I received my 760 yesterday as well.? QSI must have come back from the European holiday and shipped out our cameras.? I didn't have much time last night to test the camera.
?
- The 760 seems to be finicky with USB3 cables or I have a bad cable.? It didn't like my cable and would issue windows warnings and not connect.? When I swapped to the QSI supplied cable, everything worked.? I'll test other cables to troubleshoot.? I have an Eagle 5S and use a direct USB3.0 connection to the 760.?
- I noticed the 760 wasn't assigned a USB/COM port in windows device manager.? I not a windows expert to know if this is normal with USB3 devices or something new.
- When I connected to NINA, I first chose the 64 bit QSI driver.? I could connect to the camera but not to the filter wheel.? I then chose the "normal" QSI driver and was able to connect both the camera and filter wheel.? Again further troubleshooting will have to wait until this weekend.
- Wow those fans are LOUD.? And they run continuously.? They sound like a FLI Proline camera.
- I am using the Eagle 5S to supply power to the 760.? It is running at 12.8v vs the 12v from the supplied power brick.? I noticed the fan speed/pitch/noise raised with the increased 12.8v from the Eagle.? I wonder what tolerances the 760 has for voltage variations?
- The Eagle 2.1mm power cable has a very tight fit to the 760's power plugin.? It works but I was worrying that I was going to bend the center shaft.? Definitely don't have to worry about a power cable without the locking screw falling out.
- Other than hearing the filter wheel click and twirl and taking a quick pic using the QSI demo app, I haven't tried anything else.? I need to create my "clean room" so I can install the filters.
- Can't wait to try the 760 outside but the weather forecast for the next week is a chance of rain everyday.? I didn't expect anything else!
I'll update when I have more info to share.
?
Rebel
|
Re: QSI 700 series cameras in stock and available now.
Once I have some actual data, sure.
|
Re: QSI 700 series cameras in stock and available now.
Would mind making a dark available to inspect? XSIF or FITS. THanks!
|
Re: QSI 700 series cameras in stock and available now.
I've only seen the results from a couple users of pre-production units on AstroBin so far, yes. At least in terms of noise, there's only one curiosity in the 5 min dark I started with, where there's a little elevated ADUs (10-15) up against the edge. But much like the dark current, this is a very quiet sensor and these slightly elevated ADUs should correct out cleanly. Medium gain puts the noise floor at around 400 ADU, and the mean of the whole dark is 406 at 5 minutes (and a bit lower at 3min). I'm honestly impressed just how much Sony has kept noise down as they've shrunk the pixels on their sensors, as this is doing just as well as my 168C with larger pixels.
?
This is my first mono camera, so I'm still working through the changes to my process with NINA, as well as a reinstall of NINA and APCC on a new mini PC. I do want to get this out under the stars this week if at all possible though, so I do want to share some results once I've had the chance to capture something more than just flats and darks.?
?
 ? ?
?
|
Re: QSI 700 series cameras in stock and available now.
Finally someone with a purchased camera to get some insight from! Thanks for posting your experience. Was wondering when some feedback was going to start rolling in from the new line.?
If you wouldn't mind, I would greatly appreciate some photos of the camera as it has been very limited/non existent from the initial roll out.?
I very much hope QSI will develop a native driver for NINA and be able to not worry about ASCOM drivers.
|
Re: QSI 700 series cameras in stock and available now.
I received my 760 from Cloud Break yesterday, coming from a QHY168C as my OSC camera. I had a couple initial bits of constructive criticism from my indoor tests last night due to clouds.?
?
1) Screws and washers for locking down the filters came in an envelope, and the washers had mostly escaped into the included case during shipping to Cloud Break. With these being this small, a resealable plastic bag should really be included. Other than that, I like the included hard case, and appreciate there is space for the OAG down the road.
?
2) When using the ASCOM driver with NINA 3.x, I noticed that if I cancel an exposure, the camera remains busy until the exposure completes, as if the camera itself is still exposing. If you accidentally set a 5-min exposure to loop when you didn't mean to, that can be rather annoying as you have to power cycle the whole camera in order to skip the wait and reset everything. I need to double-check if this also reproduces in the provided QSI demo app, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's specific to the ASCOM side of the driver.?
?
3) My existing setup is a Pegasus Power Box Advance, fed via the internal USB cable on a Mach 2. The QSI doesn't seem to like being connected to the USB3 ports on the Power Box. I'm not counting this as a mark against the QSI, as my QHY 168C also misbehaves in this configuration. However, it's what the QSI does when it misbehaves that is a concern. You'll get the first few frames just fine, but it will fail at some point and when that happens it will just continue to return the last good frame over and over again. I was able to reproduce this with the QSI demo app as well. This behavior continues until the camera is power cycled. This can be disastrous when doing an automated capture session, as you'll just get a bunch of identical frames, but have no idea that the camera had hit a failure unless you are checking manually or trying to figure out why your stacked images are noisier than they should be. I did notice that the "download" took ~4 times longer when the bug was triggered than normally.
?
4) Small fans means a higher pitched whine when the camera is on. This is a bit of a nit, but I generally find the QHY fan noise less objectionable.
?
That said, the filter wheel behavior so far is consistent and repeatable, so doing some test flats indoors worked pretty well. Cooling is fine for our rather mild climate, and was using 35% power to maintain ~20C below ambient. I wasn't seeing any leaks from the Astronomik 50mm filters I'm using. Downloading over USB3 is nice and quick. In terms of the basics, there's nothing obviously wrong. I'll be happy if the driver bugs can be fixed, and can help provide logs/etc so long as I'm told how to capture them.
?
When using the ASCOM driver with NINA, you can set the gain from NINA which is good. It is backwards from what I'm used to though. 0 is high gain, 1 is medium gain, and 2 is low gain. Just be aware.?
?
I'm going to see if I can dial in my field flattener and get a reasonable flat field out of my TMB92SS using the full frame sensor when I get some time this week under clear skies. Vignetting was about 16% in the worst corners but I did notice a clear offset in the flats so it could possibly get a bit better. Need to see where in the optical train the offset is coming from.
?
|
Re: New QSI driver- released 8/5/24
Hello Barry,
?
Thank you for your feedback. We are committed to growing the QSI brand and advancing it into the future. However, our current resources for software development are somewhat limited. As sales of the new QSI 700 cameras increase, we hope to allocate more resources toward developing the new X2 drivers and enhanced macOS support.
?
?
We are focusing all our amateur astronomy efforts on the QSI brand and have exciting plans for new products in the future so naturally will want to evolve the software.
?
Thanks
Vince
?
|
Will,
The Sony sensor may not behave identically to the Kodak but the light frame was showing edge glow, which makes me think the dark should too, or it will not get removed.
Of course we may be viewing each with a different stretch and several of my assumptions may not apply.
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On Thu, Aug 22, 2024 at 01:43 AM, Paul Homer wrote:
I am not seeing the edge glow that I normally see in a dark. (I use a QSI 583 and 683) and this makes me suspicious that it has been altered.
Hi Paul.
?
Just a FYI, the QSI 6120 has a Sony sensor and doesn't have the same edge glow and bias pattern that the Kodak KAF8300 shows.
?
Will.
|
On Thu, Aug 22, 2024 at 02:51 AM, Kevin Cummins wrote:
?
OK, kinda got it.? So assume that an imaging session will start and it's 20¡ãC.? The temperature may drop during the night to 15¡ãor 10¡ãC.? How should I assess the method to determine where cooling should be set? A -20¡ãC setting for a camera that can go to -40¡ã should be considered reasonable? Because if so, I might just set it and leave it.
?
Back in the day, the philosophy was "as cold as you can get it". Maybe not now?
?
While I'm at it, where can dessicant pellets for these cameras be purchased from? If I set my oven at home to 500¡ã for 5 hours, I might not have an oven left.
?
I loaded up your earlier dark frame in TheSkyX FITS viewer, the attached image shows how to set TheSky's fits viewer for a reasonable display when capturing images.
?
For my QSI683, 583 and 532 cameras I run those all year round at -15c but I'm in the UK and rarely have to deal with an ambient much higher than 20c at night and can't image during the hottest mid-summer temperatures anyway as we have no astro darkness during late June through late August.
?
The 6120 doesn't have descant pellets, it uses a brass micro-sieve capsule, I bought a spare for the 600 series cameras direct from ATIK in 2021 but had to go through QSI support in the UK first as the part# wasn't on ATIK's spares list.
?
The cost at that time was 42 Euro's delivered.
?
?
?
|
Zack, understood and good news.
?
I will be raising that temp - this was a litmus test to make sure that the cooling was actually working. What is a good general rule for cooling?
?
It gets really hot in there in the summer. Maybe 110¡ãF.
|
It's a big leaning curve Kevin and will take some time to master.
?
The camera can only cool in ideal conditions to -40c below ambient but you should never run a cooled camera at the maximum cooling because the temperature regulation needs some headroom to move in and when you come to calibrate your images you need to have the lights, darks, flats and bias frames all taken at the same temperature.
?
You won't achieve that if the camera is set to maximum cooling and your images at the start of the session were taken at -5c and the ones at the end of the session reach -20c, for example.
?
Set the camera temperature according to the expected ambient conditions and select the targets to suit, saving those targets that would benefit from long exposures at deep cooling for the time of year, or time of night, when the ambient temperatures are low and the camera can deliver.
?
I looked at your dark frame in PIxInsight and for the temperature it looked ok to me.
?
TheSky's image viewer is a bit too aggressive I found, when I last used it, but there are a number of stretch options if I remember right and you have to select the right stretch option for the target, Its more of a quick check tool and not really a tool for assessing image quality IMO, PixInsight is the ideal tool for that.
?
OK, kinda got it.? So assume that an imaging session will start and it's 20¡ãC.? The temperature may drop during the night to 15¡ãor 10¡ãC.? How should I assess the method to determine where cooling should be set? A -20¡ãC setting for a camera that can go to -40¡ã should be considered reasonable? Because if so, I might just set it and leave it.
?
Back in the day, the philosophy was "as cold as you can get it". Maybe not now?
?
While I'm at it, where can dessicant pellets for these cameras be purchased from? If I set my oven at home to 500¡ã for 5 hours, I might not have an oven left.
|
You are now showing -24.7c and the dark is looking as expected for a 6120. All is well.?
The FITS header is still showing that your setpoint is -40c which you need to make sure it is set to something that it can reliably achieve given your ambient temp.?
|
I looked at the image after the STF Autostretch (Ctrl-A) Looks like approx 5 vertical bands and about 100 hot or warm pixels plus noise and a lighter band at the extreme top.
|
On Thu, Aug 22, 2024 at 02:13 AM, Kevin Cummins wrote:
OK, please help me learn.
?
I've been shooting film and digital for years but this is a whole new game for me. I never got serious with my used ST2000XM years ago. I was in South Carolina and was still shooting gas hypered film. OK, I'm old...
?
When I took this dark, I used the "take photo" option in TSX. It showed up in TSX FITS viewer as a pile of crap, so to speak. Small and looked like an old failing CRT with a bad signal. So that has been my reference in my communications here.
?
I just opened it up in Pixinsight out of curiosity, and it's completely black with the exception of about 40 pixels scattered about. Is that what you are seeing as well?
?
Next, what is the proper cooling to set? Should it be maxed out?
?
I can give the camera time to cool properly and take another dark from the office here. We can see if it's cooling.
?
All info and advice welcome. I don't know crap about this.
?
Thanks.
?
Kevin
It's a big leaning curve Kevin and will take some time to master.
?
The camera can only cool in ideal conditions to -40c below ambient but you should never run a cooled camera at the maximum cooling because the temperature regulation needs some headroom to move in and when you come to calibrate your images you need to have the lights, darks, flats and bias frames all taken at the same temperature.
?
You won't achieve that if the camera is set to maximum cooling and your images at the start of the session were taken at -5c and the ones at the end of the session reach -20c, for example.
?
Set the camera temperature according to the expected ambient conditions and select the targets to suit, saving those targets that would benefit from long exposures at deep cooling for the time of year, or time of night, when the ambient temperatures are low and the camera can deliver.
?
I looked at your dark frame in PIxInsight and for the temperature it looked ok to me.
?
TheSky's image viewer is a bit too aggressive I found, when I last used it, but there are a number of stretch options if I remember right and you have to select the right stretch option for the target, Its more of a quick check tool and not really a tool for assessing image quality IMO, PixInsight is the ideal tool for that.
?
Will.
|
@Nycturne
WILL B