The QHY5III174M is a classic camera for Solar System Imaging and Guiding. Its pixel size of 5.86µm make it well matched to many popular telescopes in terms of optimum sampling. The particularly big 1/1.2" sensor make it a great choice for Lunar and Solar Imaging allowing you to capture large areas without the need for a mosaic. Despite its size the IMX174 is also very fast and is capable of speeds up to 138FPS at full resolution and a ridiculous 490FPS when using a small Region of Interest (ROI).

The IMX174 features Sony's Pregius technology and combines high speed, low noise and excellent sensitivity with the QHY5III174M having peak QE of 78%.

In addition to being an excellent Solar System Imaging Camera, the QHY5III174M is also suitable for use as an entry level deep sky camera, particularly when used as a lucky imager and combining many short exposures.

The last discipline the QHY5III174M is well suited to is as a premium guide camera. With both large prism OAG systems and guide scopes, the QHY5III174M will provide a very large guiding field of view to maximise your choice of guide star. It is also well suited for use with an ONAG and full frame guiding.

Specifications

The Moravian Instruments C1-3000 Monochrome CMOS can be used for both guiding and imaging.

It's sensor is ideal for imaging the Moon, planets and bright deep-sky objects or use as a guide camera. The C1 series CMOS cameras were designed to be small, lightweight imagers for Moon and planets and for automatic telescope guiding. With proper image calibration, C1 cameras provide surprisingly good results for entry-level deep-sky imaging. The CMOS sensors used have response to light that is linear up to very close to the saturation point, so, C1 cameras can be used for scientific applications like variable star research

C1 cameras are capable of very short exposures. The shortest exposure time is 125 μs (1/8000 of second). This is also the step, by which the exposure time is expressed. So, the second shortest exposure is 250 μs etc. Long exposure timing is controlled by the host PC and there is no upper limit on exposure time. In reality the longest exposures are limited by saturation of the sensor either by incoming light of by dark current (see the following sub-chapter). The sensor response to light is perfectly linear. This means the camera can be used also for entry-level research projects, like for instance photometry or brighter variable stars etc.

Sensor Cooling Dark current is an inherent feature of all silicone circuits. It is called “dark”, because it is generated regardless if the sensor is exposed to light or not. Dark current, injected into individual pixels, appear in images as noise. The longer exposure, the greater amount of noise is present in every image. As it is generated by random movement of particles, it depends on the temperature exponentially (this is why the noise generated by dark current is also denoted “thermal noise”). Typically, lowering the sensor temperature by 6 or 7 °C halves the dark current. While the C1-3000 is not equipped with active thermo-electric (Peltier) cooling, it is still equipped with a small fan, exchanging the air inside the camera body. What's more, a small heat sink is located directly on the sensor to remove as much heat as possible. So, although the C1-3000 cannot be cooled below the ambient temperature, its temperature is kept as close to environment as possible. Compared to closed designs, the sensor temperature in the C1-3000 camera can be up to 10°C lower and the resulting dark current may be less than half. The cooling air intake is on the left side of the camera, while the output vents are on the opposite side. The fan operation can be controlled from the software. Moravian's SIPS software directly offers a slider control for the fan in the “Cooling” tab of the main camera control tool window. Camera drivers for other software must rely on driver configuration dialog box to control fan. With the fan off, sensor temperature quickly rises more than 10 °C above ambient. Turning the fan on lowers the temperature by 5 °C or more.

This compact and robust camera head measures only 57 × 57 × 48 mm not including the CS-mount lens adapter. With a standard CS-mount adapter, camera depth increases to 54.4 mm. The C1 camera Back Focal Distance is 12.5 mm, which makes it compatible with a vast number CS-mount compatible CCTV lenses. If a C-mount lens has to be used (with 17.5 mm Back Focal Distance), a simple 5 mm thick adapter ring can be used.

It is also possible to use the C1 with Nikon and Canon DSLR lenses through the use of C Mount adapters.

The head is CNC-machined from high-quality aluminum and black anodized. The head itself contains USB-B 3.0 (device) connector and standard 6-pin “autoguider” connector.

Developed and manufactured in Europe to highest standards.

Sensor: Sony IMX252 Monochrome CMOS

Resolution: 2064 x 1544 pixels

Pixel Size: 3.45 x 3.45 µm

Imaging Area: 7.12 x 5.33 mm

Download time: appr. 0.05s with USB3.0

Cooling: passive fan cooling

Head dimensions 57 mm × 57 mm × 54.4 mm (including lens adapter)

Back focal distance 12.5 mm (CS-mount compatible)

Camera head weight 215 g

Telescope/lens adapter C-to-1.25” barrel adapter, compatible with standard 1.25” eyepieces, is included into camera package.

So, the C1 camera can be easily mounted into virtually every astronomical telescope instead of an eyepiece.

Note: If the C1 camera should be used with a Moravian OAG for cooled Cx or Gx cameras, a short 10 mm C-to-1.25” barrel adapter has to be used. This adapter, shipped with the respective Moravian OAG, is fully compatible with C1 camera.

Tripod and metric threads. The C1 camera bottom contains standard 1/4" (tripod) thread and 4 metric M3 threaded holes.

First light images - See above the very first prototype of a C1-3000 camera was used by renowned astro-photographer Martin Myslivec. He used the Borg 77ED refractor telescope on the EQ6 mount to capture several unguided exposures. Despite the fact Martin is a highly skilled and experienced astro-photographer, the performance of C1 camera is very good also for deep-sky imaging. The M31 Great Andromeda galaxy is a stack of 197 exposures 20 s long (approximately 1 hour and 5 minutes of total exposure time). No image processing was performed beside individual frame calibration and slightly non-linear stretching. The M42 Great Orion nebula image was combined from two sets of exposures (kind of HDR image processing). Faint nebulosity, far from the image center, was acquired using 100 exposures 20 s long (approximately 33 minutes of total exposure time). The very bright central part of the nebula was captured with only 2 s long exposures (again 100 of them), which leads to approximately 3 minutes of total exposure time. The very short exposures allowed to perfectly capture the 4 central stars (called Trapezium) without over-exposing them. The image of M45 Pleiades is a combination of 218 exposures 20 s long (approximately 1 hour and 12 minutes of total exposure time). Again, no image processing was performed, only the calibration and slight non-linearly stretch was performed.

The Moravian Instruments C1-5000 Monochrome CMOS can be used for both guiding and imaging (including Solar System Imaging).

It's sensor is ideal for imaging the Moon, planets and bright deep-sky objects or use as a guide camera. The C1 series CMOS cameras were designed to be small, lightweight imagers for Moon and planets and for automatic telescope guiding. With proper image calibration, C1 cameras provide surprisingly good results for entry-level deep-sky imaging. The CMOS sensors used have response to light that is linear up to very close to the saturation point, so, C1 cameras can be used for scientific applications like variable star research

C1 cameras are capable of very short exposures. The shortest exposure time is 125 μs (1/8000 of second). This is also the step, by which the exposure time is expressed. So, the second shortest exposure is 250 μs etc. Long exposure timing is controlled by the host PC and there is no upper limit on exposure time. In reality the longest exposures are limited by saturation of the sensor either by incoming light of by dark current (see the following sub-chapter). The sensor response to light is perfectly linear. This means the camera can be used also for entry-level research projects, like for instance photometry or brighter variable stars etc.

Sensor Cooling Dark current is an inherent feature of all silicone circuits. It is called “dark”, because it is generated regardless if the sensor is exposed to light or not. Dark current, injected into individual pixels, appear in images as noise. The longer exposure, the greater amount of noise is present in every image. As it is generated by random movement of particles, it depends on the temperature exponentially (this is why the noise generated by dark current is also denoted “thermal noise”). Typically, lowering the sensor temperature by 6 or 7 °C halves the dark current. While the C1-5000 is not equipped with active thermo-electric (Peltier) cooling, it is still equipped with a small fan, exchanging the air inside the camera body. What's more, a small heat sink is located directly on the sensor to remove as much heat as possible. So, although the C1-5000 cannot be cooled below the ambient temperature, its temperature is kept as close to environment as possible. Compared to closed designs, the sensor temperature in the C1-5000 camera can be up to 10°C lower and the resulting dark current may be less than half. The cooling air intake is on the left side of the camera, while the output vents are on the opposite side. The fan operation can be controlled from the software. Moravian's SIPS software directly offers a slider control for the fan in the “Cooling” tab of the main camera control tool window. Camera drivers for other software must rely on driver configuration dialog box to control fan. With the fan off, sensor temperature quickly rises more than 10 °C above ambient. Turning the fan on lowers the temperature by 5 °C or more.

This compact and robust camera head measures only 57 × 57 × 48 mm not including the CS-mount lens adapter. With a standard CS-mount adapter, camera depth increases to 54.4 mm. The C1 camera Back Focal Distance is 12.5 mm, which makes it compatible with a vast number CS-mount compatible CCTV lenses. If a C-mount lens has to be used (with 17.5 mm Back Focal Distance), a simple 5 mm thick adapter ring can be used.

It is also possible to use the C1 with Nikon and Canon DSLR lenses through the use of C Mount adapters.

The head is CNC-machined from high-quality aluminum and black anodized. The head itself contains USB-B 3.0 (device) connector and standard 6-pin “autoguider” connector.

Developed and manufactured in Europe to highest standards.

Sensor: Sony IMX250 Monochrome CMOS

Resolution: 2464 x 2056 pixels

Pixel Size: 3.45 x 3.45 µm

Imaging Area: 8.50 x 7.09 mm

Interface: USB 3.0

Download time: appr. 0.05s with USB3.0

Cooling: passive fan cooling

Head dimensions 57 mm × 57 mm × 54.4 mm (including lens adapter)

Back focal distance 12.5 mm (CS-mount compatible)

Camera head weight 215 g

Telescope/lens adapter C-to-1.25” barrel adapter, compatible with standard 1.25” eyepieces, is included into camera package.

So, the C1 camera can be easily mounted into virtually every astronomical telescope instead of an eyepiece.

Note: If the C1 camera should be used with a Moravian OAG for cooled Cx or Gx cameras, a short 10 mm C-to-1.25” barrel adapter has to be used. This adapter, shipped with the respective Moravian OAG, is fully compatible with C1 camera.

Tripod and metric threads. The C1 camera bottom contains standard 1/4" (tripod) thread and 4 metric M3 threaded holes.

The QHY174GPS camera uses the 1/1.2-inch SONY IMX174 CMOS sensor with global shutter, 5.86um pixels,138FPS@1920*1200, high QE of 78%, and low read noise of 3-5e-. Unlike a rolling shutter, a global shutter guarantees that the exposure time for the whole image area is uniform, beginning and ending at exactly the same time. This type of shutter is ideal for high precision time-domain applications

The QHY174GPS has a unique built-in GPS module that can sync with the atomic clock signals received from GPS satellites. The QHY174GPS can record the start and end of exposure time with 1us precision anywhere on earth. The QHY174GPS was selected by the NASA New Horizons Team to successfully captured the MU69 occultation in the Summer of 2017

The IMX174 sensor normally has significant amplifier glow which will affect the entire image area in exposures of any significant length. However, QHYCCD has successfully incorporated our unique amplifier glow reduction technology into the design of the QHY174GPS camera to yield excellent results with this sensor.

The QHY174GPS is an ideal camera for high precision time based scientific projects. It features two working modes. In 'Free Running' Mode, the hardware records GPS time and internal 1µm calibrated time into the image header of each frame. In 'Multi-Site Sync' Mode, users can control multiple cameras that are thousdands of miles apart so that they start exposures at exactly the same time (within a micro second)

In the amatuer domain, the QHY174GPS may be used to accurately set ephemerides data for derotation of images.

Model QHY174GPS (Mono)

Sensor 2mega pixel 1/1.2" sensor

AR Coating On Sensor AR+AR High Quality Multi-Layer Anti-Reflection Coating

Pixel Size 5.86µm x 5.86µm

Effective Pixel Area 1920 x 1200 pixels

Effective Pixels 2 megapixels

Effective Image Area 11.25mm x 7.03mm

Fullwell >32ke-

AD Sample Depth 12bit/10bit (output as 16bit and 8bit)

Full Frame Rate and ROI Frame Rate

138FPS@1920 x 1080

260FPS@960 x 600

490FPS@800 x 600

Readout Noise 5.5e @ Gain 0% ~ 1.6e @ 100% Gain

Exposure Time Range 5µs-900sec

Anti-Glow Control Yes

Shutter Type Electric Global Shutter

Computer Interface USB3.0

Time Stamp Accuracy 1 micro second of GPS UTC Clock

Built-in Image Buffer 512Kbytes Flash Memory. 100Kbytes user-accessible space for stellar ROI frames for analysis of exoplanet investigation, occultations, atmospheric seeing messurement, focus , optic analysis etc. Support 100 x 100 image x 10 frames 50 x 50 image x 40 frames. 25 x 25 image x160 frames 10 x 10 image x 1000 frames （total frame numbers is based on 8bit image)

Cooling System Dual Stage TEC cooler（approx -40C° below ambient)

Anti-Dew Heater Yes Air-proof Chamber with silicon gel tube socket

Telescope Interface M42/0.75 (T2)

Optical Window Type IR cut filter

Back Focal Length 17.5mm

Weight 450g

Other Ports 6PIN RJ11 Guide Port, 4PIN QHYCFW Port.

Power Supply 12V DC input (Required for TEC use)

The QHY294M Pro is a new leap in the performance of Micro 4/3 size sensors.

The camera features the Sony IMX492 chipset which has 46.8 million 2.315um pixels. Sony 2x2 bins on-chip to create the sensor's advertised 11.7 million 4.63um pixel array. The QHY294 Pro series camera is capable of locking and unlocking the on-chip binning to provide two readout modes. The first mode reads the sensor "locked" mode to produce 11.6mp images with 4.63um pixel size and 14 bits per pixel. The second read mode unlocks the binning to produce 46.8mp images with 2.315um pixel size at 12 bits per pixel. Note this binning is like traditional CCD binning. It is not software binning and thus allows different pixel scales.

This ability to unlock the higher resolution option allows far better image scale to be acheived when using the camera with smaller telescopes of around 500mm focal length under typical seeing. In normal mode the pixel scale is well matched to telescopes of approx 1000-1200mm.

The new sensor is a BSI (Back Illuminated) type which offers far lower read noise and higher QE than earlier types. Overally, together with the pixel scal benefits, the new 294M Pro offers the possibility of better results combined with the lower overall cost of a Micro 4/3 sensor. When combined with a QHY filter wheel, 31mm filters are fully illuminated at focal ratios of as low as F3.25!

Model QHY294M Pro (Monochrome)

Sensor IMX492 4/3inch sensor

AR Coating On Sensor Yes

Pixel Size 4.63µm x 4.63µm (Unlocked 2.314µm x 2.314µm)

Effective Pixel Area 4164 x 2796 pixels (Unlocked 8340 x 5644)

Effective Pixels 11.6 mega pixel (Unlocked 47 mega pixel)

Effective Image Area 17.7mm x 13.4mm

Fullwell 65ke-

AD Sample Depth 14bit (output as 16bit and 8bit) in 11.6MP Mode / 12bit (output as 16bit and 8bit) in 47MP Unlock Mode

Full Frame Rate and ROI Frame Rate (11.6MP Mode)

Readout Noise 1.6e-1.2e@HGC moe  6.9-5.2e@LGC mode

Dark Current 0.002e/pixel/s@-20C / 0.005e/pixel/s@-10C
 

Exposure Time Range 60µs-3600sec

Anti-Glow Control Yes

Shutter Type Electric Rolling Shutter

Computer Interface USB3.0

Built-in Image Buffer 128MByte DDR3 Non-volatile memory

Cooling System Dual Stage TEC cooler（approx -35C° below ambient)

Anti-Dew Heater Yes Air-proof Chamber with silicon gel tube socket

Telescope Interface M42/0.75 (T2)

Optical Window Type AR+AR High Quality Multi-Layer Anti-Reflection Coating

Back Focal Length 17mm (+/- 0.5mm)

Weight 650g

Other Ports 4PIN QHYCFW Port.

Power Supply 12V DC input (Required for TEC use)