Hi Deb! I've only used it one night as a guider, but I'm happy to share what little I know. There might be better information at this site maintained by Meade: http://www.meade.com/dsi/index.html. The DSI is specially designed for the Meade telescope, I'm certain, and I don't understand the protocols well enough to know if it would work with another kind. You can use it to guide and take images at the same time, but when I tried to get a view of Saturn the picture was so awful that I decided I wouldn't bother with the DSI to take deep-space pictures directly. Instead, I used it as a guider and let my camera take the pictures. The DSI cord plugs into the laptop and then the laptop serial port plugs into the telescope's guide port. To use it as a guider with a camera, the DSI has plug into an off-axis guider or a finder scope (though I am sure the off-axis guider is better). There's a serial port at the back of the laptop that you use to connect to the telescope's guide port. Then there's a cord that goes from the imager to the laptop's USB port. When you have the image coming in, you draw a box around a star to act as a guide star. As the view shows a little shift in the guide star's position, the computer sends commands to the telescope and makes it move to keep the guide star centered. That was a really neat feeling for me, to see the telescope adjusting on its own and getting the star centered again. That was so much better than the times I tried to hand-guide. The DSI seemed to guide well for long exposures, as the same central star apparently stayed in position while I was taking four pictures of M-104 over an hour's period. But I can't tell exactly how well, because I had a lot of blurring on my negatives due to field rotation -- I wasn't using the wedge, which I needed to prevent rotation during lengthy exposures. In a view of the Orion Nebula there was a doubling of some big stars, which I think happened when I accidentally did something to my laptop (shut its case too far) that made it begin to shut down, then reacquire the star when I got it going again. You can see my M42 pic on my gallery -- not great, but OK for a first try and without a wedge. Best wishes, Joe
Joe,
I'd like to know how the Meade DSI works as a guider. Guidedog software is coming out with software for long exposure webcams/CCD cameras. It would be much cheaper than buying an autoguider. Also, does the Meade DSI plug into the autoguider port or do you plug it in to your laptop?
Debbie
From: Joe Bauman <bau@desnews.com> Date: 2005/03/21 Mon AM 08:40:36 MST To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Subject: RE: [Utah-astronomy] Camera for Live Views of DSO's
The best use I've found for my Meade DSI so far (and I haven't played with it very much) is as a guider. It works well that way. The images it brought up weren't so great, thoguh, but maybe if I tweak it more they would be better. -- Joe
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