TO EXPLORE THE UNKNOWN UNIVERSE
Imaging telescope: Takahashi Epsilon 130D
Mount: 10 Micron GM 2000 HPS II Combi
Filter: Astronomik LRGB 36mm · L · G · R
The QHY1920 is a Scientific CMOS camera with a large 12um pixel size. It is ideal for science research and industry in low light. And it has a relatively high QE in the IR Spectra and can be used in IR applications.
*Please contact QHYCCD about the price.
The QHY1920 has a large pixel size of 12um, which gives it a high sensitivity and an inherent advantage for capturing low light signals. With good night vision characteristics, QHY1920 is capable of low light monitoring in various fields and can also be used for live night sky and other science popularization purposes.
QHY1920 has 60-80% QE at the NIR.
| Model | QHY1920-BSI |
| Pixel Size | 12um*12um |
| Full Resolution | 1920*1200 |
| Effective Pixels | 2.3 Megapixels |
| Effective Image Area | 23mm*14.4mm |
| Fullwell | 51ke- |
| A/D | 12BIT ADC |
| Sensor Size | APS-C |
| Full Frame Rate | 58FPS@1920*1200 12bit |
| Readout Noise | 1.1e- |
| Exposure Time Range | 15us – 300sec |
| Anti-Glow Control | Yes. Can be enabled and disabled. Significant Glow Reduction |
| Shutter Type | Electric Rolling Shutter |
| Computer Interface | USB3.0 |
| Built-in Image Buffer | 128Mbyte DDR2 memory |
| Cooling System | Dual Stage TEC cooler（-32C below ambient）
(Test temperature +20°, exposure >1s) |
| Anti-Dew Heater | Yes |
| Telescope Interface | M54/0.75 female thread on the fast installer/center adjust ring |
| Optic Window Type | AR+AR High Quality Multi-Layer Anti-Reflection Coating |
| Back Focal Length | 17.5mm |
| Weigth | 705g |
The camera requires an input voltage between 11V and 13.8V. If the input voltage is too low the camera will stop functioning or it may reboot when the TEC power percent is high, causing a drain on the power. Therefore, please make sure the input voltage arrived to the camera is adequate. 12V is the best but please note that a 12V cable that is very long or a cable with small conductor wire may exhibit enough resistance to cause a voltage drop between the power supply and the camera. The formular is: V(drop) = I * R (cable). It is advised that a very long 12V power cable not be used. It is better to place the 12V AC adapter closer to the camera.
First connect the 12V power supply, then connect the camera to your computer via the USB3.0 cable. Make sure the camera is plugged in before connecting the camera to the computer, otherwise the camera will not be recognized. When you connect the camera for the first time, the system discovers the new device and looks for drivers for it. You can skip the online search step by clicking “Skip obtaining the driver software from Windows Update” and the computer will automatically find the driver locally and install it. If we take the 5IIISeries driver as an example (shown below), after the driver software is successfully installed, you will see QHY5IIISeries_IO in the device manager.
Please note that the input voltage cannot be lower than 11.5v, otherwise the device will be unable to work normally.
All-in-one Pack (Windows) is for all QHYCCD USB3.0 devices, including all Cooling CMOS cameras, QHY5III and QHY 5II series, QHYCFW3. We recommend you choose “Stable Version” as usual.
In this pack there are:
1. System driver. It must be installed to make devices work.
2. EZCAP_QT: it’s developed by QHYCCD which could be used in QHY devices tests, simple capture tasks, and above all, the management of updates. So even if you won’t use EZCAP_QT as your main capture software, we suggest you install it to get the latest information of QHY drivers/SDK updates.
3. Ascom driver: Ascom Platform is supported by most astronomy devices which connect to Windows.
4. SDK: SDK is the file of “.dll” format. With this the device can be identified in other capture software.
5. SkyX Plugin: special support for SkyX.
6. QHYCCD BroadCast WDM Driver: It is a broadcast driver that supports QHYCCD cameras with video broadcast function, which can meet the needs of customers to send video images to other target software.
How to install it?
Take SharpCap (x64) for example:
Before the installation, make sure you’ve already installed SharpCap (X64) on your PC;
Then click ”Third Party Software Support” – “SharpCap 64”, the pack will detect the location of SharpCap files and install automatically; if not, please manually select root directory of SharpCap where you installed it, like: C:\Program Files\SharpCap 3.2 (64 bit)
Before using software, make sure you have connected the cooling camera to the 12V power supply and connected it to the computer with a USB3.0 data cable. If it’s a planetary/guiding camera, 12V power is not needed.
Note: We recommend 64-bit Software when you’re using cameras with a large sensor, such as QHY600. A full resolution image from the QHY600 is 120MBytes. It takes a significant amount of processing power and memory to capture, buffer, display and process. We therefore suggest using 64-bit software with the QHY600, for example, SharpCAP x64 , N.I.N.A x64. etc. Although the camera has 4GB of internal memory, 32-bit software will run within this memory area and the remaining memory may be not sufficient for normal operation.
EZCAP_QT is software developed by QHYCCD. This software has basic capture functions for QHYCCD deep sky cameras.
Run EZCAP_QT. Click “Connect” in Menu -> Camera. If the camera is successfully connected, the title line of EZCAP_QT will display the camera firmware version and the camera ID as shown below.
Click “Temperature Control” in “Camera Settings” to set the temperature of the CMOS sensor. You can turn on “Auto” to set the target temperature. For example, here we set the target temperature to -10C. The temperature of the CMOS sensor will drop quickly to this temperature (approximately 2-3 minutes). If you want to turn off cooling, you can choose Stop. If you just want to set the TEC power but not the temperature. You can select “Manual” and then set the percentage of the TEC power.
You can use the “preview tab” to preview and use the focus tool to focus. Then use the “capture tab” to capture the image.
Launch SharpCap. If the software and drivers mentioned above are installed successfully, the video image will appear automatically about 3 seconds after the software loads. You will also see the frame rate in the lower left corner of the software window as shown below.
If you have already started the SharpCap software before connecting the camera, in order to open the camera, click on the “camera” in the menu bar and then select the device.
Offset adjustment. When you completely block the camera (i.e., like taking a dark frame) you may find that the image is not really zero. Sometimes this will reduce the quality of the image contrast. You can get a better dark field by adjusting the offset. You can confirm this by opening the histogram as indicated in the figure below.
If you want to enter the 16-bit image mode, select the “RAW16” mode.
By selecting the “LX” mode you can expand the exposure setting range and take long exposures.
After cooling devices connected to the 12V power supply, the temperature control circuit will be activated. You can control the CMOS temperature by adjusting the settings in the figure below. Basically, you can control the temperature of CMOS by either adjusting “Cooler Power” or clicking “Auto” and setting “Target Temperature”. You can also see the CMOS temperature at the lower-left corner of the software window.
With ASCOM drivers, you can use the device with many software packages that support the ASCOM standard. We will use Maxim DL below as an example, but a similar procedure is used for The SkyX and other software packages supporting ASCOM.
First make sure you have not only loaded the ASCOM drivers but that you have also downloaded and installed the ASCOM platform from ASCOM. After both the drivers and platform are installed, start MAXIMDL. Follow the instructions shown below to finish the setup. Then Click Connect in and enter the software.
Open N.I.N.A. – Nighttime Imaging ‘N’ Astronomy. Drive connections via ASCOM. 
Turn on the TE cooler to set temperature. Then set the exposure time to capture the image.
QHYCCD BroadCast WDM Camera is a broadcast driver that supports QHYCCD cameras with video broadcast function, which can meet the needs of customers to send video images to other target software. For example, use sharpcap to connect a WDM-enabled camera, and the sharpcap display video image can be sent to other WDM-supported software for display, which is suitable for video online broadcast applications.
The installation process is over, right-click the computer to find the device manager, and check that the image device name is QHYCCD BroadCast WDM Camera, which means the installation is successful.
HANDYAVI test effect chart:
UFOCAPTURE test renderings:
To avoid the problem of unreliable USB connection or port damage caused by leakage of computer or 220V to 12V adapter
Some computers or 220V to 12V adapters have leakage currents. If they are not well grounded, a high voltage is formed between the ground (metal case) of the USB interface and the ground (metal case) of the power supply line. If the USB and power supply wires are in good contact with the camera, the device can operate normally due to the formation of a common ground at the camera.
However, the common ground formed at the camera is very dangerous. On the one hand, it is easy to cause the USB connection to be unreliable, and the USB connection is often lost during use, and on the other hand, there is a risk of potentially damaging the port. Therefore, make sure the computer and adapter are well grounded before putting the device into service.
You can use the multimeter’s AC voltage file to detect if there is any leakage between the computer and the adapter. The method is not to connect the camera first, one meter is connected to the metal case of the USB plug, and the other meter is connected to the negative pole of the DC output plug of the power adapter (generally inside and outside negative). If the voltage between the two is small, there is no leakage or a good ground has been achieved through the ground of the power plug. If there is a voltage of several V to several tens of V, there is leakage and there is no good grounding. Need to check if the 220V power plug can provide a good ground.
If there is no way to avoid it, you need to use a separate wire to connect the ground of the computer (usually connected to the metal case) and the negative pole of the 220V to 12V adapter to achieve common ground.
The CMOS sensor is located in the CMOS chamber. There is a hole in the side of the camera near the front plate that is normally plugged by a screw with an o-ring. If there is moisture in the CMOS chamber that causes the sensor glass to fog, you can connect the silica gel tube to this hole for drying the chamber.
Place an effective silica gel desiccant in the silica tube make sure there is some cotton inside to prevent the silica gel from entering the CMOS chamber.
If you find dust on the CMOS sensor, you can first unscrew the front plate of the cam and then clean the CMOS sensor with a cleaning kit for SLR camera sensors. Because the CMOS sensor has an AR (or AR/IR) coating, you need to be careful when cleaning. This coating can scratch easily so you should not use excessive force when cleaning dust from its surface.
If the ambient humidity is very high, the optical window of the CMOS chamber may have condensation problems. The QHY600 has a built-in heating plate to heat it to prevent fogging. In most cases, it is very effective. However, If fogging still persists, try the following:
1. Avoid directing the camera towards the ground. The density of cold air is greater than the density of hot air. If the camera is facing down, cold air will be more accessible to the glass, causing it to cool down and fog.
2. Increase the temperature of the CMOS sensor. You can increase the temperature of the CMOS sensor slightly to prevent fogging of the glass.
3. Check if the heating plate is working. If the heating plate is not working, the glass will be very easy to fog. Normally, the temperature of the heating plate can reach 65-70 °C in the environment of 25 °C. If it does not reach this heat, it may be because the heating plate is damaged, you can contact us to replace the heating plate.
You should avoid thermal shock during use. Thermal shock refers to the internal stress that the TE cooler has to withstand due to the thermal expansion and contraction when the temperature of the TEC suddenly rises or falls. Thermal shock may shorten the life of the TEC or even damage it.
Therefore, when you start using the TEC to adjust the CMOS temperature, you should gradually increase the TEC power rather than turning the TEC to maximum power. If the power of the TEC is high before disconnecting the power supply, you should also gradually reduce the power of the TEC and then disconnect the power supply.
How to avoid the camera hanging?
If your camera hangs (stops downloading images and does not respond to commands) it may be caused by a number of things. Check the following:
1. In some computers with a VIA chipset and some types of motherboards, running the camera with SharpCap will not produce an image. But in ASCOM it works well. In this case, you need enable the DDR buffer of the camera.
2. Is there a leak for your mount or computer? If so, the leaking current may be transferred from computer to the camera via the GND. This may affect the USB transfer and cause data packet loss, hanging the camera. In this case you need to make sure that the computer and mount are well grounded.
3. Is the USB port voltage sufficient? The voltage of some computers’ USB ports is sometimes less than +5V. This may cause the camera to hang. In this case you can use a powered USB 3.0 HUB to connect camera, which will ensure that the camera gets +5V power.
4. Is your CPU utilization is too high? If your computer’s CPU utilization is too high, it will cause many frames to be lost and may cause the camera to hang. You can change the USB
traffic value to reduce the FPS and get more stable video transfer.
5. Is the USB cable connection is secure enough? Sometimes a connection issue with the USB cable to camera or USB cable to computer will cause some signal loss and may cause the camera to hang, particularly when you move the cables. In this case you can try to add a little silicon oil into the USB connector and socket. This can make the connection more stable.
6. Avoid the static electricity. Static electricity from the human body can cause the camera to hang. To ground yourself, touch the external metal case of the computer to discharge any static electricity before touching the camera.
7. Are you using the front USB port on your computer? The USB port on the front of some computers is not adequate for high-speed transfer because it is connected to mainboard by a cable which weakens the signal integrity. If you find that the camera always hangs when using the front USB port, try using a USB port on the rear panel of the computer instead. This will connect the camera to the chipset on the mainboard directly.
8. When the USB selective pause function is enabled in the system, it may cause the camera to hang during long hours of work. Follow the steps below to turn off this option. Windows power setting steps: 1. Click “Start button” and click “Settings”. 2. Click “Power and Sleep”, and click “Other Power Settings”. 3. Click “Change Power Plan”. 4. Click “Change advanced power settings”. 5. By default, the “USB Selective Suspend” function is enabled. (This may cause the image to freeze, the frame rate too become low, the video to become unsmooth, the image fail to refresh, and so on.) 6. Disable this function.
9. When you encounter a situation where the camera cannot output the usual frame rate after updating Sharpcap software, please download the All-In-One installation package and select the Sharpcap option during installation. The installation package will automatically update the QHY SDK in Sharpcap. Restart the sharpcap software after completion.
Image misalignment due to USB data transmission errors
What is happening here can be caused by USB communication problems or external interference problems. The data of the USB image packet being transmitted is wrong and cannot pass the CRC check, so the SDK judges it as a USB transmission error. The SDK will repair communication errors to avoid crashes, but this packet of data will also be lost. To trouble shoot this type of issue, note the following:
(1) Communication quality problems caused by USB cable damage or poor USB contact: The solution is to replace the USB cable, and check the connection of the USB cable to the computer and whether the connection between the USB cable and the camera is too loose.
(2) Some HUBs with mismatched signals may cause such problems. Connect directly or replace to another type of HUB. (It is recommended to use active HUB)
(3) The communication is experiencing interference problem caused by noise or voltage leakage of the AC adapter. Check whether the AC adapter of each device in the system is well grounded.
(4) You may be using an SDK and firmware that do not match. Download the latest installation package (QHY recently released the All-In-One installation package, which can automatically replace the SDK with one click, you only need to check the corresponding software in the installation package), or request QHYCCD technology Support remote assistance.
