QHY600M/C Cooled Photographic Camera

Equipped with a Sony IMX455, the QHY600 is a back-illuminated Scientific CMOS Camera with extremely low dark current (0.002e/p/s@-20C) using SONY’s Exmor BSI CMOS technology. QHY600 is also a zero amplifer glow camera.

The QHY600 has only one electron of read noise at high gain and full resolution and 4FPS readout speed.  One electron of read noise means the camera can achieve a SNR>3 at only 4 to 6 photons. This is perfect performance when conditions are photon limited, i.e., short exposures, narrow band imaging, etc., making this large area sensor ideal for sky surveys, time domain astronomy, fluorescence imaging, DNA sequencing and microscopy.

2GB DDR3 image buffer

In order to provide smooth uninterrupted data transfer of the entire 60MP sensor at high speed, the QHY600 has 2GB DDR3 image buffer. The pixel count of the latest generation of CMOS sensors is very high resulting in greater memory requirements for temporary and permanent storage.  For example, the QHY600 sensor produces about 120MB of data per frame.  The data band-width is also increased from the original 16-bits to the current 32-bits.  Transferring such a large file sizes necessarily requires the camera to have sufficient memory. The QHY600 has adopted a large-capacity memory of up to 2GB.  Data throughput is doubled. This large image buffer meets the needs of high-speed image acquisition and transmission of the new generation of CMOS, making shooting of multiple frames smoother and less stuttered, further reducing the pressure on the computer CPU.

Another advantage is that when using some computers that do not have fast processors or have poor support for USB 3.0, the computer can’t transfer high-speed data well, and the data is often lost. The DDR can buffer a lot of image data and send it to the computer. Even if the USB 3.0 transmission frequently gets suspended, it will ensure that data is not lost. There are options in SharpCap to turn DDR buffering on or off. The current version of the ASCOM driver works in DDR mode.

Extended Full Well Capacity and Multiple Read Modes

With a pixel size of 3.76um, these sensors already have an impressive full well capacity of 51ke.  Nevertheless, QHYCCD has implemented a unique approach to achieve a full well capacity higher than 51ke- through innovative user controllable read mode settings.  In extended full well readout mode, the QHY600 can achieve an extremely large full-well charge value of nearly 80ke- and the QHY268C can achieve nearly 75ke-.  Greater full-well capacity provides greater dynamic range and large variations in magnitude of brightness are less likely to saturate.  The QHY600 / 268C have three readout modes with different characteristics.

QHY600 Series have mutiple models which covers both photographic and scientific using. Below list different types of QHY600 PH (photographic) series:

QHY600PH : Standard version for amateur astrographers;

QHY600PH SBFL : it has shorter back focal length compared with other PH types;

QHY600PH L : a Lite, shorter and cheaper version.