Useful Info
My session from last night would hang on “Auto guider has resumed” and does not proceed to capture any light frames. It would center on target just fine as per usual after starting the sequence. I tried restarting/shutting down, refreshing the PHD2 profile but do improvement. The autoguider does start in PHD2 though. A look at the log files shows a line that says “Error capturing image! : Property read ASCOM.QHYCCD.Camera Offset is not implemented in this driver.” I’m running the QHY268M. I’ve reinstalled the drivers and will try again tonight.
Thanks for any input.
There has been a lot of recent changes to QHY drivers and there is plenty of scope to screw up their installation.
First things first, what ASCOM version are you using? If you want to do offset and gain settings, you need version 6.5 sp1
Thanks for the reply mate. I just downloaded 6.5 sp1 just before I reported the problem. Before that I had 6.4. I’ll set up again tonight and try again. Really annoying as I can’t image at the moment because of this error.
yes - ASCOM 6.5 is the first platform version to support offset and gain through ASCOM commands (as opposed to in the properties box).
You will also need to carefully check the QHY drivers too. I would recommend using their Beta all-in-one pack and, once the installer(s) have finished, you are still not done.
You then need to open the shortcut to the QHY SDK folder and locate the ASCOM folder and specifically install the ASCOM 6.5 drivers. (The one that pops up as an option in the main installer is 6.4 only).
None of this, of course, has anything to do with SGP!
Thanks heaps mate. That solved the issue exactly. Yes, as you say, I determined SGP wasn’t the problem but it was an ascom/driver issue or something like that as other programs were happily imaging but they weren’t trying to manipulate the offset.
Thanks again, really appreciate the input.
Just some observations about QHY and ASCOM. I purchased a QHY163M in early January, '21. I downloaded and installed the ASCOM drivers from their web site. The version downloaded was v20.06.26.36. I was writing some ASCOM camera control software (Windows 10, 64bit) that was to be ASCOM 6.5 SP1 compliant (setting both gain and offset values on CMOS cameras) and discovered that version of the QHY ASCOM driver had not been updated to the ICameraV3 specification. I contacted QHY support and after several exchanges, they sent me a link to an updated version, v21.01.18.13. I installed this version of the driver and it fixed all the issues I was seeing.
BTW – I never did anything (like copying stuff to the SGP folder) except run the installer and everything worked fine.
I noticed the ASCOM download page on the QHY web site is still providing the v20.06.26.36 version of the ASCOM driver, so I don’t understand that.
I just ran the QHY “Update Checker” utility and it shows my system running v21.01.18.13 but recommends downloading v20.06.26.36.
If anyone wants to install v21.01.18.13, here is a Dropbox link to that installer:
BTW – this package appears to only install the 32bit version of the driver because when I use ASCOM diagnostics to test the camera, the attempt to connect to the camera in 64bit mode always fails.
I would completely disregard the QHY Update Utility. The utility itself is badly in need of an update!
The latest version of the All-in-one QHY drivers includes the latest ASCOM camera driver for ASCOM 6.5 SP1 and 64bit imaging applications. As buzz said, you have to install the ASCOM 6.5 driver after the all-in-one install is complete.
Yes- QHY themselves told me not to use the ‘update checker’ and that they were going to replace it.
The all-in-one installer does not have an option to install an ASCOM driver for 6.5, only 6.4. If you want 6.5, you have to open the QHY folder that is created and holds all the drivers and explicitly install the ASCOM 6.5 driver.
These files work on Win 10 x64, with 64-bit apps, such as EZcap, NINA and SGP. I’ll remove them from dropbox when they get superseded.
Maybe I wasn’t clear. You are absolutely right that you need to install the QHY ASCOM 6.5 driver after running the all-in-one installer. What I was saying is that the latest version of the all-in-one beta installer includes the version of the ASCOM 6.5 driver that works with 64bit applications. QHY released the version they sent you first.
Well clearly I’m new to all of this!!! The QHY268M was my upgrade from a Canon 250D DSLR. I just would have assumed that what you install is the latest.
the 6.5 driver I installed is version 21.03.11.11 according to the file name. So is v21.01.18.13 that you posted a link to an even newer version?
Jheppell
There are three ‘driver’ types, so you have to be careful. There is the low level USB driver, which interfaces to the camera, the ASCOM driver that works through this USB driver and separate to that, for applications that do not use ASCOM, a SDK (software dev kit) driver. The versioning in the QHY drivers uses a backwards date. YY.MM.DD.??
You can tell the USB driver by looking it up in Windows hardware manager (from control panel). The others are listed when you look at the ASCOM setup properties in SGP for the camera.
Thanks for that info. Interesting how it all works. I’ve clearly got a few layers of technological ignorance to get through!! Most of the time I’m just happy when stuff works!!
I know that feeling mate!!! Perhaps not in a computer situation but certainly in my profession (synthetic organic chemistry/pharmaceutical chemistry). Makes you feel like you need to do your PhD again to re-learn it all.
