QHY5iii462C Help Needed for complete Numpty!

[CarlGreen]

Hello everyone, I am very new and inexperienced in Photography of any kind let alone Astro photography!
I have a Celectron 9.25 SCT with a f6.3 reducer and I have just purchased the QHY camera listed in the subject line and I have absolutely no idea how to use it!
I have looked at the Manual (And whilst they might make good cameras, they certainly don't make good manuals!)
They have supplied me with a few filters (Which I assume I can screw on to the camera should I so desire) but I am not really sure when I would use them (Also, singularly, together???)
I intend to purchase the Sharpcap License once I have an inkling of what I am doing so any help with settings and general usage would be most welcome.
Thanks everyone

[johnpd]

Hi Carl,

I have used the QHY5III462c camera mostly for last Fall's great evening planet display. It is a great camera for lunar and planetary and I got some great shots with it. I assume that is why you bought the camera. I agree the QHY manuals leave a little to be desired.

1. You received two filters: (1) an IR/UV cut filter and (2) an IR850 filter. #1 is the one you want to use normally. #2 is used for getting images in the near infrared. I am not sure how useful that is for standard imaging. So screw on the IR/UV filter and use that.

2. As I mentioned above the QHY5III462c is primarily a lunar, planetary, solar camera and has a very small FOV especially with the scope you will be using. You will be getting a very highly magnified image. I don't know if you will be trying any deep sky imaging but that might be a little tough. You will not be able to get many nebulae especially those of any size. You might be able to get some galaxies depending on their size.

3. The first thing you want to do is to determine proper white balance for the camera. When you first start it up in SharpCap you will noticed that images are distinctly green in color that is because there are two green pixels for only one red and one blue one. I have determined what color numbers you need to use to get a decent white balance. Set Red=158, Green=128, and Blue=224. That will get you pretty close. You can always adjust it further in whatever imaging software you might decide to use. Also to make things simple, set the "Colour Space" to "RGB24".

Good luck with the camera and enjoy it.

JohnD

[admin]

Hi Carl,

As John points out you will have a really small field of view, which makes things hard. The best advice is to start with the moon as your first target - more details :

viewtopic.php?p=12082#p12082
viewtopic.php?p=2294#p2294

Robin

[CarlGreen]

Thanks to both of you for your input, most useful.