#GetQHYCCDSingleFrame error (-1)

The guide camera issue that I encountered couple of nights ago is now officially resolved. If you haven’t read my previous blog on the issue. Here it is. I was receiving error [ERROR] GetQHYCCDSingleFrame error (-1) and wasn’t able to find a solution online. To resolve it, I decided to re-install Astroberry software and test the camera again. My thought was that in the process of installing sdk for the camera, I might have messed something up. So, I went through the process of reinstalling the software, which in of itself is not a big deal. It takes all of 10 minutes. The bigger pain is installing astrometry image files for plate solving. They FOV that I usually download the files for (its much more than I need) takes up about 13GB of space taking a bit of time to copy over. Once I re-installed EKOS and INDI, I tested the camera and viola, it worked. Just to make sure that running my CCD and guide camera together were not causing issues, I connected the CCD camera as well. Everything worked fine! Excited, I decided to shoot M101 (Pinwheel Galaxy) for the night.

After putting my son to sleep, I set up the scope in the drive way, connected the mount, the guide scope, the focuser and CCD to RPI4, polar aligned it and was all set. I turned on everything and took sample images from CCD to see how far off focus I was and then took a test image from my guide scope and what do I see: [ERROR] GetQHYCCDSingleFrame error (-1). I thought that this night was either going to be a bust or I will have to take short exposures I did last time. Before deciding to go for short exposures, I decided to debug the issue for a bit since the camera worked in the afternoon. The only difference was that I had connected all the equipment now but had only the cameras connected in the afternoon. I disconnected the mount and tired a short exposure image from the guide camera and it worked! Realizing that it must have something to do with my USB hub, I decided to connect the guide camera directly to the RPI4 instead through the HUB and it solved all my problems!

I was able to just over 3 hours of data, most for an image that I have taken so far, and the result speaks for itself:

M101 Pinwheel Galaxy 30×300 second and 11*200 second subs

There was some post processing that I had to do in GIMP to remove light pollution gradient and I think having more integration time would remove the noisiness/graininess from the image but overall I am pleased with what I was able to capture. I did include darks but not flat or bias frames. Next clear sky night I have to decide if I want to stick to this set up or test out my mirrorless with NINA. If I stick with this set up, should I get more data for the same target or go to a different one. Decisions, decisions too many decisions to make…… well, good thing is I don’t need to make any of the decisions right now 🙂 .. so let’s wait for the next clear night and punt the decisions to then.

[Edit]: One thing I forgot to mention in this post and prior post covering this issue is that the setup had worked with all my devices connected to the USB hub. Something changed between builds of Kstars/EKOS/INDI that caused the driver to break.

After two months, there was a clear night in the Pacific NorthWest. Naturally, I decided to set up my telescope and get some pictures. I wanted to capture some real data to process and publish so did not tinker with my setup. Since it is galaxy season right now and between the mirrorless and CCD camera, the CCD set up was tried and tested, so I decided to use it. After putting my son to sleep, at around 8pm, I set up my camera, polar aligned it and got the imaging camera in focus. Problem started when I was looking to get my guide camera in focus. The camera wasn’t taking a picture and returning this error: [ERROR] GetQHYCCDSingleFrame error (-1)

I tried rebooting my Raspberry Pi and switching the USB ports but still the same error. I had recalled that earlier i had to download the latest SDK to make my QHY camera work. I tried that as well but with no luck. At that point I decided that instead of trying to debug the issue, I would rather capture some data. Without autoguiding, I couldn’t expect to get pinpoint stars with more than 30 second exposure but that would mean I wouldn’t get any sort of details of the galaxy arms. Even so, I just wanted to be able to capture some deep sky object. The target was M51 (Whirlpool Galaxy) and plate solving (which I had a bit of trouble getting remote solver to get going) placed smack in the middle of my frame. I started shooting 30 second subs and luckily there was no trailing. I could have bumped up the sub duration but I did not want to try it then. I took around 60 subs plate solving every 10 or so subs to make sure the object was in the center of my frame. I could have continued taking more pictures but I prefer at least 3 minute subs so checked the weather for the following night – “mostly clear” and decided that I will debug the problem during the day and set up the following night and hopefully get some useful data. I took around 10 darks and called it a night around midnight. I’m still figuring out the issue with the QHY camera and will write about it in a subsequent post but for now, here is what I captured:

M51 Whirlpool Galaxy. 60 30 second subs 10 30 second darks and no auto guiding.

This is a stack of 60 30 second subs and 10 30 second darks with just some stretching and no post processing. I still have a long way to go for getting a great print worthy astrophotograph but I think the night was not a total bust. One thing astrophotography will teach you is to be patient :). I have been at it for more than a year now but don’t think I have one photography that I can call great. I have, however, learnt a whole lot in this past one year and hoping that my efforts at documenting my journey will be helpful to folks who are just taking this hobby up.

[Edit]: Here is a post processed version of the image. After the initial stretching, I tried to get rid of some light pollution. I still have a long way to go in terms of learning how to post process but for such a short integration time, I don’t think the image is half as bad. What do you think?