QHY 294C PRO [COLOUR]

The QHY 294C Pro is a popular cooled colour camera with large pixels and low noise. It contains the Sony IMX 284CJK Exmor R with exceptional low light capabilities. The pixels measure 4.8µm, making this camera ideal for medium-long focal length telescopes but also camera lenses and short refractors that may suffer from elongated stars on the borders. Large pixels can mask minor aberrations of the telescope that are generally visible in cameras with small pixels (2-3 µm).

The QHY294C Pro camera is capable unlocking the on-chip binning to provide two readout modes. The first mode reads the sensor in "locked" mode with the original resolution of 11.6Mp, 4.63µm pixel and an bitrate of 14 bits. The second read mode unlocks the binning to produce a resolution of 46.8Mp with 2.315µm pixel and bitrate of 12 bits. 

This camera has a two-stage TEC cooling system that brings the temperature of the sensor 30°C/35C° below ambient for low noise imaging, even in warm climates. The dark current at -20°C is only 0.002 electron/pixels. In addition to thermoelectric cooling, QHYCCD employs a unique thermal noise control technology to reduce CMOS sensor noise to a very low value without affecting the integrity of the raw image. The QHYCCD proprietary technology produces a much better noise reduction than any other astronomy camera in the market. QHYCCD has more than 10 years of experience designing cooled cameras. The QHY 294C Pro employs a full anti-dew technology for both CCD sensor cover glass and the sensor chamber optical window.

The 256MB DDR III memory buffer facilitates the download of images to the computer, especially when USB traffic is high, the writing speed of your computer is slow or occupied in other processes. 

In order to avoid halos around bright stars, the QHY 294C Pro has an AR coated optical window on both sides rather than the common IR/UV cut window. Also, the protection glass of the sensor is AR coated to maximize light transmission and minimize internal reflections. For a better RGB colour balance, it is recommended to use a UV/IR cut filter. The QHY 294C Pro has zero amplifier glow no matter how long the exposure is.

The camera 2 capturing modes:

• LGM (Low Gain Mode) #0
  
• HCG (High Gain Mode) #1

The system will switch between the two modes automatically when the gain is set to 1600.

• QHY 294C Pro
• USB 3.0 cable (1.5m)
• Screw jack power cable (5.5-2.1mm male jack with locking nut to 5.5-2.1mm female jack)
• Lighter plug adapter to 5.5-2.1mm power jack
  
• Desiccant Drying Tube (desiccant not included)
• Camera dovetail to M54 x 0.75 adapter with 3 thumb screws at 120°
• M54 x 0.75 to 2"adapter (2.5mm optical thickness, M48 x 0.75 internal thread for standard 2" filters)

Video presentation of the QHY294C.

QHY camera drivers

QHY 294C Pro manual