QHYCCD COLDMOS QHY163M User manual

QHY163M
COLDMOS Astronomy Camera
User Manual
REV.1.6

Contents
01 PACKAGE CONTENTS ........................................................................................3
03 SOFTWARE INSTALLATION................................................................................4
04 USE QHY163M WITH FILTER WHEEL ................................................................6
05 USE QHY163M IN SHARPCAP............................................................................7
06 USE QHY163M WITH ASCOM...........................................................................10
07 USE QHY163M IN EZCAP_QT...........................................................................17
08 USE QHY168M IN FIRECAPTURE.....................................................................19
09 USE BROADCAST VIDEO STREAMING ...........................................................20
10 QHY163M COLOR WHEEL CONTROL PORT...................................................21
11 QHY163M GUIDE PORT CABLE RJ11 PIN SEQUENCE ..................................21
12 FAQ.....................................................................................................................22
13 CAMERA MAINTENANCE..................................................................................27
15 OHY163M MECHANICAL SIZE ..........................................................................28
16 SPECIFICATIONS...............................................................................................31
17 REVISION HISTORY ..........................................................................................32

QHY163M
3
01 Package Contents
USB3.0 cable(1.5m)
1
Self-locking power cable
1
6pin guide cable
1
Car power adapter
1
Drying tube
1
Desiccant
1
M42/2inch adaptor(Maximum diameter: 56mm)
1
Driver download card
1
Inspection report
1
QHY163M camera
1
Optional accessories
Car power adapter
1
C-MOUNT lens adapter
1

QHY163M
4
03 Software Installation
1.Download and install ASCOM platform
2.Download and install the Camera Driver
3.Download and install the ASCOM Driver
As you most probably want to use your QHY163M 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. QHY163M camera uses SharpCap as the default capture software. Please download SharpCap.
QHY163M camera can run on SharpCap 2.9 or later versions
Note that QHY168M requires the latest qhyccd.dll for the new version of SharpCap, and QHYCCD has
alreadydeveloped a softwarenamed SharpCap Patchforit.Youshould downloadandinstallit prior
to using SharpCap.
5. Connect QHY163M 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.

QHY163M
5
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.

QHY163M
6
04 Use QHY163M with Filter Wheel
QHY163M is a monochromatic camera and it is frequently used with color filter wheel. With its M42/2inch
lens mount (this has alreadybeen installedon QHY163M), connecting it with QHY color filter wheel will be
simple and quick. QHY163M supports connections both with QHYCFW2-S and QHYCFW2-M.
After you’ve installed color filters for your QHYCFW2-M properly, you can begin to connect it with
QHY163M as shown in the picture below.
First, you need to stick QHY163M into QHYCFW2-M as shown in the picture above. Then you should
screw those three bolts in. At the first time you screw bolts, you may find it a little bit difficult to screw in,
in this case, please make sure that the bolts are pointing towards the center and apply a little bit more of
force. Finally, you should connect your QHY163M with QHYCFW2-M by using DIN4/RJ11 cable, which
is included in the box.
The last thing you need to do before using QHY163M with QHYCFW2-M is to open the link below to
download and install the driver (ASCOM FiltersPlug-in) for QHYCFW2-M.
Now, you should be all set. Read the following parts to know how to use QHY163M with color filter wheel
in SharpCap, MAXIMDL, and Sequence Generator Pro.

QHY163M
7
05 Use QHY163M in SharpCap
1. Connect your QHY163M to color filter wheel with DIN4/RJ11 cable. Connect your QHY163M to 12V
power supply. Connect your QHY163M to your computer with USB3.0 cable. Before running SharpCap,
make sure filter wheel’s initialization is finished. When it is initializing, you can hear the sound gear
makes. When it is finished, you will see the color lights flash. If you start SharpCap before initialization is
finished, SharpCap cannot detect the filter wheel.
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 (QHY163M 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 mayalso impede obtaining the best performance.
So you can try to use the “Zoom” function to reduce the display size to see if it helps. Normally speaking
the QHY163M can get more than 22.5FPS@16mega full resolution.

QHY163M
8
5. Adjust filter wheel position. You can select which filter you are going to use by changing the
position of filter wheel as shown in the following picture.
6. Adjust the offset. When you block the light thoroughly, you may find that the image is not really
zero. Sometimes this will lower the quality of image contrast. Youcan 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.
7. If you want to try 16bit image, you can switch the Colour Space to “MONO16”.
8. By check the “LX” mode you can expand the exposure setting range and take long exposure shot.
QHY163M camera has the anti-amp light control circuit and it can reduce the amplifier glow significantly.
Note that it’s impossible to reduce the glow in the corner thoroughly, and it’s normal to see a very small
amount of glow in the corner when you do longexposure.
A typical long exposure image in +20℃, 5 sec exposure and 50% gain of QHY163M is shown below.

QHY163M
9
9. After you connect 12V power supply for QHY163M 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.

QHY163M
10
06 Use QHY163M with ASCOM
You can connect many software that support ASCOM. Currently QHY163M only supports normal ASCOM
connection and does not support the ASCOM VIDEO connection. Please note that QHY163M always
transfers maximum bit depth by ASCOM to make the best DSO imaging performance. The image format
is 16bit width and patch zero on low bit.
MAXIMDL
1. First you have to makesure that both ASCOM Platform and ASCOM driver have been installed. If not,
please install it first.
2. Start MAXIMDL
3. Follow the instructions shown below to finish the setup

QHY163M
11
Normally, you can set the gain=1 and offset=10 to start. Keep clicking “Okay” to return to Camera Control
window.
The following instructionsare going to showyou how to configure filter wheel (QHYCFW2-M) in MAXIMDL.
Click “Setup Filter” in the Camera Control window.

QHY163M
12
In the window shown below, you can set up your filter wheel
Keep clicking “OK” to return to the Camera Control window. Click “Connect”

QHY163M
13

QHY163M
14
Sequence Generator Pro
Sequence Generator Pro is an extremely powerful image capture suite. It can perform many complex
tasks in order to meet your imaging needs. After you connect your gears and configure Sequence
Generator Pro properly, you can go to sleep and see images in the morning.
To use QHY163M in Sequence Generator Pro, you can follow the instructions listed below.
Open sequencer by clicking the button in the red rectangle as shown in the picture below.
If you’ve connected QHY163M to your PC before click that red button. The red button will turn to green
as shown in the picture below.

QHY163M
15
The next step is going to connect your filter wheel (QHYCFW2-M). Before you select QHYCCD Filter
wheel as the filter and click the red connect button, you should also make sure you’ve connected
QHY163Mto filter wheel (QHYCFW2-M) with DIN4/RJ11 cable, you’ve plugged in the 12V power supply
cable, you’ve installed the Filter wheel drivers, and the initialization of filter wheel has been finished.

QHY163M
16
For example, you can change the filter names to Lum, Red, Green, Blue, and Ha as you installed them
this way. Then you make schedule events to take turns to use these filters as shown in the following
picture.
For detailed and helpful tutorial of this software, please go to its website to check its help content.

QHY163M
17
07 Use QHY163M in EZCAP_QT
EZCAP_QT (V0.1.51.18)is the software developed by QHYCCD. This software has the basic capture
function for QHYCCD deep sky cameras. You can use this QHY63M camera with filter wheel in this
software.
1. Install EZCAP_QT software.
2. Connect your QHY163M to 12V power supply. Connect your QHY163M to color filter wheel with
DIN4/RJ11 cable. Connect your QHY163M to your computer with USB3.0 cable.
3. Run EZCAP_QT. Select “Connect” in Menu->Camera. If the camera is successfully connected. The
title of EZCAP_QT will display the camera firmware version and the camera ID as shown below.
4. In Menu->Camera Setup, Click “Temp Control” and set the CMOS sensor temperature. You can
enable the “Auto Control” and set the target temperature. For example here we set the temperature to -
10C. The CMOS temperature will come to -10C very fast (in about 2-3minute). If you want to close the
TEC, you can select “TEC OFF”. If you just want to set the TEC power but not the temperature. You
can select “Manual” and then set the percent of the TEC power

QHY163M
18
5. You can select which filter you are going to use by changing the position of filter wheel as shown in the
following picture
6. Youcan use the previewtab to do preview.And use the focustools to do focus. Then use the capture
tab to capture image.
7. In EZCAP_QT there is a planner for image tasking. You cancapture a series images by using the
table below.

QHY163M
19
08 Use QHY168M in FireCapture
The latest FireCapture supports QHY163M already.
By default, it will be installed in the “Documents” folder. After it was installed successfully, navigate to
“Document folder”, and you will find its installation folder as shown below.
Enter that folder and run "FireCapture.exe", then select QHYCCD camera. And after the loading, you
will see the image on FireCapture like shown below.
For detailed and helpful tutorial of this software, please go to its website to check the tutorial section at
http://www.firecapture.de/

QHY163M
20
09 Use BroadCast Video Streaming
BroadCast video steaming is a special function that QHY163M supports. It can send the video image to
multiple target software via QHYCCD BroadCast video driver. For example, you can use the SharpCap
software to control the QHY163M camera and at the same time the video appearing on the SharpCap
will be sent to any of software that support the WDM camera, like the HandyAvi, Adobe video encoder,
online chat software etc. This function is very useful for the video live broadcast applications.
1. Install the BroadCast Driver
2. Connect QHY163M to your PC and start SharpCap
3. Turn on “Enable Live Broadcast” at the bottom of Camera Control panel in SharpCap as shown below.
4. Select "QHYCCD camera (WDM)" as your webcam in the software you areusing.