The first impression was very positive! Even though it is “made in China” it looks very well designed and made. The build quality is on very high level. It is not plastic like Atik, but metallic. The original package comes with camera, T-2 to 1,25″ nosepiece adapter, USB cable and setup instructions. I have also ordered RJ-11 cable for direct autoguiding via camera.

I got impressed when I unscrewed the nosepiece because of the size of the CCD. It seems really huge comparing to tiny CCD detectors in webcams (Atik ATK-2HS also uses ordinary 640×480 one). The resolution is 1280 x 1024, more specification are available at the QHY website.

QHY5 without nosepiece

The best thing is that QHY5 has T-2 thread which perfectly fits to my autoguiding telescope so I can just screw it on.

QHY5 on the autoguiding telescope

As you can notice it has two ports in the back side. One is USB 2.0 port for connection with the computer and another is ST-4 compatible autoguiding port for direct connection with the mount. I am using Vixen SkySensor hand-controller and I though that it is compatible but in fact it isn’t, because Vixen uses it’s own standard for autoguding. The connector is the same but wires are connected differently so today I am going to make a new cable. The camera has also build-in red LED diode which is too bright and could be disturbing in a completely dark so I pasted a black stripe over it.

Back side of QHY5

The camera comes with one A4 paper sheet of instructions how to setup. The drivers are not included, you have to download it from the Modern Astronomy site. The setup is really simple, you just install the generic driver and plug in the camera. Then you have to install additional driver for the autoguiding software you are using, in my case Guidemaster. All the main autoguiding software are supported, including ASCOM platform.

To sum up, I am very satisfied with the purchase. Two days ago I had a first light and everything worked fine. I was planning to capture M102 but ended with just 2 pictures because it clouded. This is 100% crop of one of them as a proof that camera guides OK:

100% crop of M102

I hope you enjoyed the review. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask under the comments

The main difference between equatorial mounts and alt-azimuth mounts is the direction of moving of axis. While at equatorial mounts one (R. A.) axis is parallel to the Earth’s axis of rotation at alt-azimuth one axis is always horizontal and another is vertical. In the beginning it’s much more friendly for the user since it’s very easy to use but for astrophotography is practically useless. A lot of telescopes for visual astronomy comes with alt-az. type of mount. When we are watching an object and we don’t have a drive installed on our mount for automatic slewing we usually move the object in the center of the field, observe it for minute or so and then we move the telescope again. But that doesn’t work for astrophotography because the tracking has to be smooth and constant.

Another problem is that there alt-az. mounts are always less precise because the both axis has to be moved in the same time and that means that the controller has much more work to do and that every single moment the star has different direction and relative speed in the sky.

The last but not the least problem is field rotation wich occurs due to relative spped of the stars mentioned above. As we know the stars are virtually moving around the northern and southern celestial pole and when we have rotating the objects that are more distant from the centre of rotation are moving faster. And that occurs at alt-az. mounth that when we do some minutes long exposure – the stars in the centre of the field are sharp but on the eadges they looks loke they are rotating around the centre of the picture.

To conclude, if you like just to observe the sky the alt-azimuth mount is a good idea since it is easy to use and easy to build (it’s not expensive). But if you are planning to do the astrophotography then youhave to avoid alt-azimuth mounts.

Thanks for reading!

Image source: See Viewo

On the beginning of summer 2008 I figured out that the situation from the point of light pollution from my backyard is so bad that I need the solution. On the web I found some filters that suppress the light pollution but no one good review of them.

In the end I decided for IDAS LPS filter of Hutec. Because I was pretty sure I will be using just for astrophotography I decided for front-filter (look at this figure) which can be placed directly in the camera’s body so I can use it with lenses also and not just with the telescope. The version of filter is P2, that means that is the most suitable for astrophotography in prime focus.

The filter arrived on June and costed approximately 250 eur here in Europe, in USA it’s a bit cheaper. The first impression was something like: “250 eur for such a piece of glass?!??”. But after a first-light I changed my opinion. It is worth every single pennie! It works just the best for me, my backyard turned to the very good astrophotography place. It has no affect to sharpness of the image. I use it with my Canon 350D (Baader mod.) and also both sample pictures are captured with this equipment. The telescope was William Optics SuperAPO 80/480 with TeleVue reducer/flattener 0.8x. The picture without filter is out of focus because when I removed the filter I didn’t refocused. Anyway, it represents the affect of filter. Both pictures are captured at the same settings: f/4.8, ISO1600, 120s, RAW, WB(2850, -30), imported and exported with Lightroom.

The image without Hutech IDAS LPS filter

The image with Hutech IDAS LPS filter

It’s quite obvius what the filter does.

I have also measured the Mean of these two pictures. The median value for the picture without IDAS LPS is 118 whereas the median for picture with IDAS LPS filter is 52.

That’s all, hope that this article will help someone to decide what to buy or not to buy.