This forum doesn't seem to be in much use at the moment but in case any one is interested I have been using the new Meade DSI for about a week. The software installed ok to my laptop but the camera didn't like either my add-on USB 2 card or my OE USB 1.1 sockets. A web searched revealed that that Meade have released a software upgrade recently and this is free to download. With this installed the camera would still not recognize my USB 2 but does work fine, if slowly, through USB 1.1; thus focussing is painfully slow.The box included a parfocal ring which is great, use it on an eyepiece to quick focus the 'scope then put the camera in.
The software is not easy to use or to understand however the camera sensitivity seems to be much higher than my tri-colour ATIK CCD and has a significantly lower dark noise and very few hot pixels. A one minute exposure with an 80mm refractor is enough to see faintly the arms of M81 and a stack of 25 such images allows the arms to be clearly seen when the histogram is stretched. Since the results are 16 or 32 bit (as long as you choose one of the various FITs format for all image saving)a logorithmic stretch is nice and even, far preferable to the 8 bit results of the ATIK. The 2 cameras are comparable in price and the ATIK is so much easier to use than the DSI but the Meade will see deeper and with less noise so I prefer it. Any comments?

• Thanks for the info - voijarisa - January 10, 2005 - 21:39 UTC
  • Meade DSI thoughts. - clitherowclan - January 10, 2005 - 22:22 UTC
• USB2 Problems - wardlaw - February 23, 2005 - 20:49 UTC
• DSI imager from Meade - orion747 - September 9, 2005 - 18:52 UTC
• DSI Pro - astrotizio - October 19, 2010 - 20:42 UTC