Hi All,

This is my first light test image of the QHY8 CCD camera, it is a 6 megapixel Cooled full color single shot CCD with very low thermal noise...super low dark current.

As most of you know I was asked to be a USA dealer several years ago for these cameras by the Manufacturer located at the University of Bejing, China.

I beta tested some earlier versions for QHY CCD and still own the QHY2 3 megapixel cooled CCD & QHY5 Auto-guider(aka Orion's Auto-guider).

I never pursued the dealership offer(i just don't have the time), but shortly there after CCDLabs and Orion telescope started offering the cameras.

They also now have in production QHY8 Pro for Fastar telescope systems (circular shape) and A new 8 megapixel cooled QHY9 CCD. QHYCCD also have an equivalent to SBIG's StL11000,low cost, and a new 16 Megapixel in the works for a fraction of the cost of anything like it out there!

www.QHYCCD.com

Now back to the image details....
Here is my shot of M57 taken Friday Night After AR, from my backyard observatory in Dayton, I shot it right from the city. No light pollution filter(I had forgotten to get it from JB), no dark frame, no bias , and no flat field done.

I tried to look at just raw image at worst case scenario(no darks or bias) to see if the low noise was, to see if it was as good as they were claiming.

Yup! Nice and clean a straight 5 minute shot....very sensitive, but low noise,
I found only 7 hot pixels.

This was shot thru my 10" F10 SCT with (F6.3Reducer), Auto guided with the QHY5
I controlled the camera thru the "Nebulosity" program and it worked perfectly!

The only issue I had was the Power supply that I was using,(QHYCCD Do Not include a Power source) the supply had burned up after only 1 hour of imaging. The camera draws about 3 amps at 12V for the peltier cooler, and my locally bought power supply was supposed to be rated at 12V 5 amps constant with 7 amps surge, but it died anyway, Not rated at what the local Shack claimed on the Supply itself!!!,....cheap piece of @#$%#! So I switched to a Portable battery pack that Carl Allen made me some time ago...no problems since.

I took a bunch of images, but will post them later...
these are high enough resolution at 35mb files raw...that I can get really nice 16x20 prints out of them.
I re-sized this one for the clubs forum, it shows the true field of View of the original frame....The insert is a simple crop from the high res file enlarged to show you that you can zoom right into the ring.

Now keep in mind the seeing sucked and we had high cirrus floating thru when I took this quick shot of M57....so now I can't wait till we get a really good clear night...I'm dying to try it out on my 16" scope too!

Now I just showed Ron whitehead at AR Saturday night, how to run his camera too...so I'm sure he will be posting some nice pictures shortly as well.

Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com