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
QHY2020 is a cooled scientific CMOS camera with GSENSE2020 back illuminated CMOS sensor: 13.3mm x 13.3mm, 2K*2K resolution, 4mega pixels. This square scientific CMOS has ultra high QE and wide spectral response from 200nm to 1100nm. It has 94% peak QE at 550nm-600nm, 60% QE at 240nm. It also has very good QE in the NIR range, 60% at 800nm, 38% at 900nm. QHY2020EUVX is a special EUV/Soft X-ray enhanced version with >90% QE in 1.2nm to 15nm extreme UV range. The high, wide response from NIR to UV makes the QHY2020 a perfect camera for spectrum analysis and spectrum imaging systems. The QHY2020 is also an ideal scientific CMOS camera for Fluorescence imaging .
*Please contact QHYCCD about the price.
QHY2020 supports 21 5FPS,25,35FPS frame rate and HDR two channel output. It has the capability to output dual channels as 4096 x 2048 with one channel at high gain and one channel at low gain. You can also select either the high gain or low gain output.
With read noise as low as 1.6e-, this camera can capture photons from very dim objects. At 3.5 electrons it can achieve SNR=2, which means 4 photons. This detection limit is close to some EMCCD cameras.
The standard version of the QHY2020 is USB3.0. It can produce a maximum frame rate of 33 frames per second for single channel 12bit images, or 21.5 frames per second for dual channel 12-bit images (HDR mode). The camera can also transfer selected regions of interest for extremely fast rates, e.g., 450 FPS at 128lines, 1460 FPS at 32 lines. This specially addressed line readout mode can also be customized.
Please contact QHYCCD for order if you want to purchase, consult or customize scientific cameras.
| Model | QHY2020 / QHY2020EUVX |
| CMOS Sensor | Gpixel Gense2020 BSI / Gesen2020 BSI-PS |
| Pixel Size | 6.5um x 6.5um |
| Sensor Surface Glass | Clear Glass / Non-Glass |
| Effective Pixel Area | 2048 x 2048 |
| Effective Pixels | 4 Megapixels |
| Effective Image Area | 13.3mm x 13.3mm |
| Fullwell | 56ke- |
| AD Sample Depth | Dual 12-bit A/D (High Gain Channel and Low Gain Channel) * |
| QE | QHY2020 94% peak QE. 60% @ 800nm 38% @ 900nm 60% @ 240nm QHY2020EUVX 90% to 99% at 1.2nm to 15nm 35% @ 200nm 68% @ 600-700nm 50% @800nm 40%@900nm |
| Full Frame Rate and ROI Frame Rate | Full Frame Rate
(Clock 3， STD mode, 12bit, DDR ON) 2048*2048 32.5FPS (Clock 1， HDR mode, 2*12bit, DDR ON) 4096*2048 21.5FPS Hardware ROI Frame Rate * (Clock 3， STD mode, 12bit, DDR ON) (Clock 1， HDR mode, 2*12bit, DDR ON) 2048 Lines 21.5FPS (eg. 2048*2*2048) *note: Hardware ROI support need upgrade the MAX10 FPGA codes. (>=V2020.3.18) and Need the System Driver >=2020.3.14 and SDK>=2020.3.14 |
| Readout Noise | 1.6e- |
| Dark Current | TBD |
| Exposure Time Range | 20us – 300sec |
| Shutter Type | Electric Rolling Shutter |
| Computer Interface | USB3.0 |
| Built-in Image Buffer | 128MByte (512Mb) DDR2 |
| Cooling System | Dual Stage TE Cooler（-40C below ambient）
(Test temperature +20°) |
| 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 | 16mm（±0.5） |
| Weigth | 750g |
GSENSE2020BSI has a dual ADC structure. The two ADCs will sample the same signal at the same time and generate two images. One image has low gain, big dynamic, another image has high gain, low readout noise. With this configuration, it can be used to generate the HDR image to enhance the dynamic range. QHY2020 can output the two-channel at the same time. The following picture is the dual ADC output images generated by QHY2020. The left is the low gain channel and the right is the high gain channel.Its resolution is 4096*2048 which consists of two 2048*2048 images. QHY2020 can also output the single high gain 12bit channel or the low gain 12bit channel with 2048*2048 resolution. These modes can be switched by the “ReadMode” options.
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:
The following picture is a dark frame of 60sec exposure, @ -20C sensor temperature. You will see a little ampilifer glow on the corner of the image. But it should be easy to be removed with dark frame calibration. Please note this is a CLASS 2 sensor. So you will see a defect row in this image. QHY2020 has both Class 1 sensor version and Class 2 sensor version. The price is different.
https://www.qhyccd.com/uploadfile/2019/0106/20190106010501406.zip
The following picture is a 10sec exposure dark frame under -20C degree cooling, with background level stretch. Class 2 sensor.
Added functions related to BURST mode in SDK. Currently, cameras that support Burst function include QHY600, QHY411, QHY461, QHY268, QHY6060, QHY4040, QHY4040PRO, QHY2020, QHY42PRO, QHY183A
This mode is a sub-mode of continuous mode. This function can only be used in continuous mode. When this function is enabled, the camera will stop outputting image data, and the software frame rate will be reduced to 0. At this time, send relevant commands to the camera, and the camera will Output the image data with the specified frame number according to the settings, for example, set Start End to 1 6, the camera will output the image data with the frame number 2 3 4 5 when receiving the command.
Note:
1. When using Burst mode in fiber mode, the first Burst shot will be one less. For example, if the start end is set to 1 6, the output of 2 3 4 5 is normal, but in fact, only 3 4 will be output during the first burst shot. 5, 2 will not be received, the second and subsequent shots can normally obtain Burst images 2 3 4 5. This problem will be fixed later.
2. QHY2020, QHY4040 found that the frame number that came out when the exposure time was short is [start+1,end-1] but the one that came out under long exposure was [start+2,end]
3. When the camera is just connected, if the set end value is relatively large, the camera will directly output the picture after entering the burst mode. Therefore, it is necessary to set the camera to enter the IDLE state and then set the start end and related burst operations.
The following is the usage of Burst mode related functions:
