Meade DSI Pro CCD

Meade have just released the DSI Pro.

www.meade.com/dsipro/

Dave McD

More sensitive and more resolution, this might be one worth buying.

The chip still looks fairly small and I'm not keen on using filter wheels/sliders.
You need really good tracking for that, as you effectively need 3 or 4 similar exposures of the same ares of the sky.

note in the add that the 2 wide field images were taken with fast small aperture refractors while the likes of the LX200 images were objects like galaxies, narrow field.

I like the way the filter slider is built-in.
We'll have to wait and see.

Chip is very small alright - smaller than a webcam.

I didnt realise it was that small, that pretty much kills it for me

Folks - beware of judging any imager based on the size of the chip.

Don't forget, the DSI and DSI Pro use CCD chips - not the CMOS chips you find in webcams or digital SLR's. The CCD chip is more sensitive than a CMOS chip and is much better at gathering photons, particularly when there aren't many of them.

And just like comparing a 3.5 inch Orion to a 3.5 inch Questar, well, you just can't compare them on size! Any given CCD chip has its own characteristics and physical size of chip is the last parameter you would look at when comparing them. Pixel size, QE (quantum efficiency), ABG or NABG - these are some of the factors you would look at.

And by the way, I'm not selling Meade here! There are plenty of other CCD imagers out there that are way better - but when you get to the price list, you'll see where the DSI wins it for the average amateur just starting off on astrophotography.

But in order to give the 'balanced' view to others reading this board, please do not simply look at the physical chip size as your only purchasing parameter.

Interestingly, Meade are using software technology deployed by NASA on the Hubble. This is probably what will have the 'big boys' (SBIG, Finger Lakes, Apogee, Starlight Express) running all the way back to the R&D lab if they weren't already after the release of the DSI.

www.meade.com/dsipro/drizzle.html


SBIG, Finger Lakes, Apogee and Starlight Express CCD's all start off at $1300. You can get the Meade DSI for $300.00. The pro version is $400.00 (BW) and $500 (colour). Sure enough, the chip is monochrome, hence the optional filter slider for colour shots.

Cheers

Dave McD

Dave,
I guess I should have qualified my statement by saying that it would be hard to get images of something like big nebulae or clusters with it.
It would be fine for galaxies, infact, M51 would fit nicely into its field of view on my scope, my only problem is tracking.
I dont think at the moment I would be able to achieve accurate enough tracking to use such a chip, unless I got a seriously expensive mount :lol:
I'll stick with the canon for now, to a certain extent its wide field of view seems to hide small tracking errors.
I've nothing against the DSI, but I dont think I'd be able to use it properly at the moment, hence "that kills it for me".