#camera #qhyccd #ascom #alpaca #astronomy

app qhyccd-alpaca

ASCOM Alpaca driver for QHYCCD cameras and filter wheels

2 releases

0.1.1 Jan 15, 2024
0.1.0 Jan 15, 2024

#593 in Hardware support

MIT/Apache and LGPL-2.0

175KB
4.5K SLoC

qhyccd-alpaca

Crates.io Codecov Dependency status

ASCOM Alpaca driver for QHYCCD cameras and filter wheels written in Rust.

Current state

Tested Operating Systems

  • Debian 12 (Bookworm) amd64
  • Ubunutu 22.04.3 LTS arm64 (Raspberry Pi 4)

Tested Cameras

Camera Model ASCOM Validation Status
QHY5III290C Passed
QHY5III178M Failed - exposure fails with error code 0x2001
QHY178M Passed
QHY600M Passed

Tested Filter Wheels

Filter Wheel Model ASCOM Validation Status
QHYCFW3L-SR Passed

Tested Software

  • SharpCap
  • ACP
  • NINA
  • SGP

Installation

Prerequisites

The driver relies on the QHYCCD SDK version 23.09.06 and libusb-1.0.0. The instructions below are for installing from source.

Debian / Ubuntu / Raspberry Pi OS

Install libusb-1.0.0 and build tools
sudo apt-get install -y make cmake build-essential libusb-1.0-0-dev
Install QHYCCD SDK
wget https://www.qhyccd.com/file/repository/publish/SDK/230906/sdk_Arm64_23.09.06.tgz
tar xzvf sdk_Arm64_23.09.06.tgz 
cd sdk_Arm64_23.09.06/
sudo sh install.sh
Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/ivonnyssen/qhyccd-alpaca.git
cd qhyccd-alpaca
cargo build --release
Run the driver
cd target/release
./qhyccd-alpaca [--help for more info]

Rust version requirements

qhyccd-alpaca works with stable Rust. The minimum required Rust version is 1.75.0.

Missing features

  • LiveMode is not implemented
  • The driver only supports cameras that can transfer 16bit images (almost all cameras can though)
  • FastReadout is implemented using the Control::Speed property in the driver, however this control is not available on any of my cameras, so it is untested.
  • Pulse guiding is not implemented
  • If you find anything else missing or wrong, please open an issue.

License

This project is licensed under either of

at your option.

Contribution

All contributions are welcome.

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in qhyccd-alpaca by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.

Dependencies

~12–44MB
~625K SLoC