|
Chuck Reese
writes of his Deep
Sky Imager II
"As a happy DSI owner of one year, I was
really curious to see what Meade could do to top the original
camera.
Actually, I was a little skeptical as I hooked up the
DSI II and brought it to focus. My first reaction was "Wow!". The
increased resolution is significant, and immediately apparent
on the preview screen. And the new Zoom feature made focusing fast
and easy.
I then trained my scope on M27, the Dumbbell
nebula. My second reaction was "Wow! - Do I have the wrong focal
reducer in place?". The increased chip size was much more noticeable
than I expected - the field of view with the DSI II at F10 is
roughly the same as the original DSI at F6.3.
I proceeded to
take a preview exposure of 30 seconds duration. My third reaction
was "Wow! - This camera is way more sensitive!". In fact I was able
to see the little red Ha "wings" of M27 clearly in that single, 30
second preview exposure.
As I examined the preview image, my
next reaction was "Wow! The DSI II nailed the difficult to reproduce
teal color of the nebula's strong OIII region". And the camera found
the correct color balance automatically, displaying the accurate
color on the preview image itself.
The rest of that first
night was pretty much like that, one target after another, excellent
color, comfortable, wide FOV's, incredible detail.
It wasn't
until the second night out that I came to appreciate the new
automatic dark frame management system. After going through my setup
routine, I went to my first target for the night...and realized, I
did not have to take dark frames because the Envisage software would
match the operating temperature of the chip to the correct dark
frames taken from previous sessions. My reaction? "Wow - this thing
is a time machine!". All those hours formerly spent taking dark
frames now go to taking pictures...what a fantastic feature this
is!
My hat is off to Meade...I was expecting an incremental
step forward - the DSI II is more like a quantum leap! The DSI II is
a genuine pleasure to use, and the quality of images it produces are
on a par with cameras costing many times as much. Well
done!
TWO IS BETTER THAN ONE
How sweet it is" to image
with a pair of DSI II's!
Using the color camera to capture
the RGB data, and the Pro version to capture the Luminance data
shortens overall data acquisition times and simplifies post
processing.
I use one DSI to image, and the other to guide.
30 minutes to one hour of color, and one hour of luminance is all
you need to to produce stunning images with pinpoint stars,
exquisite detail, and incredible color fidelity.
The
automatic dark frame management system makes every minute of
precious imaging time count...and the Pro/Color combo ensures
maximum results with minimal effort."
Chuck Reese
Prior
Lake, MN
|
