Meade DSI Photos

Astrometric Observatory (The Online Observer and Instrument Builder)

Meade DSI Photos - 1

Here's photos taken with the Meade Deep Sky Imager (DSI) camera. It's a 1-shot color camera using a Sony HAD CCD w/ 510 by 492 pixels, each 9.6 by 7.5 microns. All taken with a Meade 10" aperture f/4 LXD55 reflecting telescope.

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Comet Machholz 1-20-2005

Comet Machholz at 1:32 UT 1-20-2005. A composite of 4 one minute exposures. The faintest stars are about 16th magnitude. The comet's coma is blue-green due to fluorescence of C0 and C2 molecules by the sun.

Orion Nebula 1-22-2005

Orion nebula. Photo is composite of 57 ten second exposures taken from 3:24 to 3:45 UT on 1-22-2005; thus the exposure duration is 9.5 minutes. The faintest stars are about 16 to 17th magnitude. This is a composite only with no contrast enhancement, unsharp masking, or color adjustment.

Comet Machholz 1-22-2005

Comet Machholz at 1:40 UT 1-22-2005. A composite of 2 ten second exposures. The faintest stars are about 13th magnitude. The blue sky is due to moonlight from a 9-day old moon.

Orion Nebula 1-22-2005

Orion nebula - same as photo at left, but the contrast has been increased and the color balance adjusted. There is no unsharp masking. All compositing and subsequent image processing on this page was done with Registax.

The size of the CCD chip is 4.9 (horizontal) by 3.7 (vertical) millimeters. When used with a 10" f/4 telescope, the field of view is 0.28 by 0.21 degrees, or 16.58 by 12.52 minutes of arc. In the above 4 photographs, north is at the top, and east is at the left - because the telescope tube is west of the pier. None of the photos have been cropped, but compositing with Registax will sometimes darken the east/west sides of the field of view.