QHY294C PRO [COLOUR]

The QHY 294C Pro is a popular cooled colour camera with large pixels and low noise. It contains the Sony IMX 294 Exmor R with exceptional low light capabilities. The pixels measure 4.63µm, 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).

Note: Although the QHY294C Pro camera is capable of unlocking the on-chip binning to provide two readout modes, currently there is no way to debayer the 46.8Mp unlocked bin 1x1 mode. 

This camera has a two-stage TEC cooling system that brings the temperature of the sensor around -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, 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 camera has 2 gain modes, switching automatically between the two depending on the gain value selected:

• #0 - Low Gain Mode (LCG): below gain 1600 - the standard mode used for general astrophotography. The readout noise is 6.9e- to 5.2e- decreasing with gain. At gain zero the full well capacity is 65,000e-, ideal for imaging areas with bright stars and strong contrast.

• #1 - High Gain Mode (HCG): at gain 1600 the camera automatically switches to high gain mode, resulting in ultra low read noise of 1.2e- to 1.6e- and a full well capacity of about 14.5ke-. This mode is ideal for narrowband imaging where long exposures are generally required.

• 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)
• 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