QHYCCD QHY168C User Manual

COLDMOS Astronomy Camera

QHY168C

User’s Manual Rev. 1.1

QHY168C

This document is an online document. You may save this PDF file or print it

out. QHYCCD reserves the right to change this user manual without prior notice.

Package Contents

please confirm that the package contains the following items:

USB3.0 cable(1.5m)

1

Self-locking power cable

1

Angle adjustment adapter ring

1

Spacer to convert M54 to 2 inches

1

12V power adapter

1

Dust cap

1

Drying tube

1

desiccant

1

Driver download card

1

Inspection report

1

camera

1

Optional accessories

Car power adapter

1

QHY168C

Table of Contents

01 Software Installation

02 Use QHY168C in SharpCap

03 Color Balance for QHY168C

04 Use QHY168C with ASCOM

05 Use QHY168C in EZCAP_QT

06 Use QHY168C in FireCapture

07 Use BroadCast Video Streaming

08 FAQ

09 Camera Maintenance

10 Inspections

11 Mechanical Size and Back Focal length

12 Revision history

QHY168C

1

01 Software Installation

1. Download and install ASCOM platform

2. Download and install the Camera Driver

3. Download and install the ASCOM Capture Driver

As you most probably want to use your QHY168C as an expose camera, please download the

Capture version. If you want to use it as a guide camera, please download the Guide version.

4. QHY168C camera uses SharpCap as the default capture software. Please download SharpCap.

QHY168C camera can run on SharpCap 2.9 or later versions

Note that QHY168C requires the latest qhyccd.dll for the new version of SharpCap, and QHYCCD

has already developed a software named SharpCap Patch for it. You should download and install it

prior to using SharpCap.

5. Connect QHY168C to 12V power supply. Connect QHY168C to your PC with USB3.0 cable. For

the first time the system will find a new device and search the driver. You can skip the online

searching by clicking "Skip obtaining driver software from Windows Update" and the computer will

find the drivers. After installation is complete successfully, you can find the device in the device

manager as shown in the picture below.

6. QHYCCD has developed a software named UpdateCheck that can check if the drivers installed

on your computer are the latest versions as well as update the drivers if needed. If the status of

some driver is “Need Update”, you can directly download its update package in this software

freeing you from the inconvenience of looking for and downloading it from our website.

Take QHY367C for example, you can see the drivers we need are the latest versions and don’t

need to be updated as shown in the following picture.

QHY168C

2

Note that after you downloading and installing the new drivers by using this software, be sure to

pull the USB cable out and then plug it in to enable the new drivers.

QHY168C

3

02 Use QHY168C in SharpCap

1. Connect QHY168C to 12V power supply. Connect QHY168C to your PC with USB3.0 cable.

2. Run SharpCap. If the aforementioned software and drivers all have been installed properly,

the video image will appear automatically and you will see the frame rate at the lower-left

corner of the software as shown below

3. If you have started the SharpCap before connecting camera to your PC. You can click

menu->cameras->rescan for cameras to search the camera and check on the camera name

(QHY168C in this case).

4. To make sure the camera can run properly, the software will start the camera at the lowest

speed, which makes the frame rate much lower than the highest frame rate declared on its

webpage. Now you can try to get the most out of it by changing several settings. First you

can try to set the exposure time to 1ms, then try to reduce the "USB traffic" value. For

modern computer with i7-4 core, it should get the max performance. But please note that

not all computers can get the best performance due to various reasons such as the CPU

loading, the saving-energy mode setting, the mainboard performance and USB3.0 port

performance. Sometimes the display size may also impede obtaining the best performance.

So you can try to use the "Zoom" function to reduce the display size to see if it helps.

The debayer may take the CPU time and sometimes it will limit the frame rate. You can use

the RAW8 mode and select debayer OFF to get faster.

QHY168C

4

5. Adjust the offset. When you block the light thoroughly, you may find that the image is not

really "zero" (entirely black). Sometimes this will lower the quality of image contrast. You can

adjust the offset to make the histogram peak close to zero in order to get a better

background. You can open the histogram to confirm that.

QHY168C is a color camera, so it is very important to set the offset to a low value and make

the histogram peak close to zero. Because the color camera color balance is to multiply a

ratio to the pixel value in the FPGA. The bias will be multiplied too and it may affect the color

balance.

6. If you want to try 16bit image, you can switch the Colour Space to "RAW16".

7. By check the "LX" mode you can expand the exposure setting range and take long exposure

shot. QHY168C camera has the anti-amp light control circuit and it can reduce the amplifier

glow significantly. For more information about its anti-amp light control function, please

check its corresponding webpage.

QHY168C

5

8. After you connect 12V power supply for QHY168C to power the TEC cooling circuit, you can

set the CMOS sensor cooling temperature in the "Thermal Controls" section in SharpCap as

shown in the following picture.

Basically, you can control the temperature of CMOS by either adjusting "Cooler Power" or

clicking "Auto" and adjusting "Target Temperature". You can also see the CMOS temperature

at lower-left corner of the software.

Before use this function, you should read the content about how to protect the cooler in the

FAQ section.

QHY168C

6

03 Color Balance for QHY168C

SharpCap will start at the default RGB balance for color camera. Here is the screenshot of the

QHY168C start up

For color camera, SharpCap will show the WB Red/Green/Blue progress bar.

Since the color balance is the ratio between Red to Green and Blue to Green. You can fix the

Green color to 7 and adjust the Red and Blue.

For example, in the image above the blue is 10 and red is 10, green is 7. It looks the image is well

white balanced. If you need more blue, since it has limit of 15. In this condition, you can reduce

the green a little and you will have more room for the ratio.