Astrometric Observatory (The Online Observer and Instrument Builder)
Meade DSI Photos - 4

More photos with the Meade DSI 1-shot color CCD camera.

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Jupiter & 4 satellites

Jupiter and 4 Galilean satellites on 04/08/2005 at 2:15 UT. A composite of 51 images, each a 1/4 sec. exposure. The satellites are labeled with their names and magnitudes using Guide 7.0. Jupiter was low in the east, thus there are color fringes visible on the images. The images were composited with Registax, and there are no other adjustments except cropping and labeling. Photo taken with 10" aperture F/4 Meade LXD55 telescope.

High-contrast recomposite

This is a very high-contrast re-composite of the image at the right to show the faintest stars. It is a 50 image composite (10 sec. ea.) or a 500 sec. exposure. The composite was made using a faint star near the center of the fov. It shows stars to about 17th magnitude. The bright splotch at the upper-left corner is the on-chip amplifier hot spot.

Arcturus at high-power

Arcturus imagery at high magnification on 4/21/2005 from 04:40 - 05:30 UT. I added a 5X Barlow to the Meade 10" f/4 to get f/20 and a scale of 0.35 arc-sec/pixel. The original fov is 3.3 by 2.5 arc-min, but these are cropped and enlarged to better show the detail. The exposure times were 1/100 sec., and an image was taken every 0.37 sec. Arcturus was about 50 - 60 deg. in altitude and the seeing was about average (!!). The image at the lower-right is a composite of 126 random images - over 1,000 were taken. The colors, contrast, and brightness have not been modified from the original images - including the composite. The images shown here were chosen at random.

Green laser beam in Lyra

A green laser pointer was mounted as a finder on my 10" scope. This image is a composite of 50 images (each one a 10 sec. exposure), and shows the beam as about the same angular size as Jupiter - about 1 arc-min. Visually, the beam extended all the way to (and touching) the brightest star in the frame (gamma Lyrae at mag. 3.3). The faintest stars are about 16th magnitude. The laser is from Beam of Light Technologies (BOLT). It's output power is 4.92 mW, the exit beam is 1.1 mm in diameter, the beam divergence is 1.2 milliradians (4.1 arc-min); and the output wavelength is 5320 Angstroms.

Did you know that this laser has the same illumination power (watts per square meter) at a distance of 100 meters as a 365 kilowatt light bulb with a 15% conversion efficiency (electricity to light) also at a distance of 100 meters? Download the ASCII file "LASER101.BAS" highlighted below and calculate data for your own equipment and range!! The program outputs watts/m^2, magnetic field (Tesla), and electric field (Newtons/Coulomb).

click here to download file

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