So I used the V4L2 driver and it never occurred to me to check for a native driver but there is a rpicam driver here: github.com/indilib/indi-3rdparty/tree/master/indi-rpicam


I don't know if this supports the HQ camera or not.

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No I did not succeed and I moved on to use a TC7 (ASI120 clone) and it works. With the PI HQ, I could not get it to take images in the dark that looked anything like a star field with INDI. When I used some of the Raspbian web-based video tools. I was able to see bright star. This tells me the HQ camera can image in the dark but that it was INDIlib that could not configure it correctly. Note that back then, I was using the V4L2 driver. Am I mistaking or is there a driver for the the HQ camera now?

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I've been trying to get the Pi HQ to work as a guide camera for a few weeks now but have not succeeded yet.

Here is my story:

I have a C-mount to 1.25 inch adapter and then use the HQ camera in a Svbony 50mm guidescope (190mm focal length).

With either raspistill or RPi_Cam_Web_Interface, I'm able to get a star field. It is faint with never more than a few starts visible yet astrometry.net is able to resolve the images so it is adequat. See for example: nova.astrometry.net/user_images/3821744#annotated

With my 50mm Svbony guidescope and its focal length of 190mm, the field of view is as follows according to astrometry.net image:
Size: 1.91 x 1.43 deg
Pixel scale: 1.7 arcsec/pixel

My main scope is a 650mm focal length with a Nikon APS-C crop sensors that gives me 2.0 deg wide field of view. The guidecope would thus have a near 1:1 field of view and nearly matching arcsec/pixel.

Here are my 2 issues: First, I'm trying to get it to work with PHD2 via the indi_v4l2_ccd driver running on the pi. I'm on version 1.8.4 and I'm not able to get good images at night. During the day, I can see in PHD2 daylight images of what ever the guide camera is pointing too. At night however, I get a lot of noise (white dots all over that change position on every shot) and can't get stars. I obviously have an exposure, white balancing or gain issue.

Second problem is that indi_v4l2_ccd (or V4L2 by itself) does not support the camera's high resolution out-of-the-box. Someone has identified that if you manually set the camera resolution before starting indi, then it works but at that resolution, PH2 complains and I get no images (daylight or night). BTW: I use the following cmd:
v4l2-ctl -v width=4056,height=3040,pixelformat=BGR3

If anyone has figured this out yet, let us know. I'm going to upgrade to indilib 1.8.5 and continue hunting from there. I'l also try to see if I can get exposure/gain to work at when imaging using commandline v4l2 tools instead of indilib.

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