DSI first experiences

[g__day (Matthew)]

Some observation on my inaugral run guys and gals!

1. The Meade DSI manual is as terse as the sea is wet.
2. A flakey PC that crashes every 15 minutes does not add to ones viewing pleasure (not sure if the DSI is triggering instability on my PC (instant crashes and re-boot, not even a blue screen of death) or if the PC just generally is on its way out)
3. Locating your PC quite a distance from your mount makes focusing a CCD a real pain in the arse
4. As does running a Meade DSI on a Celestron CG5 mount. The supplied software is all largely incompatable between imager and mount
5. You feel like a hero when your first ever shots come in; nevermind that there quality is simply that of a couple of overly shiny lights in the sky, things will improve with patience, skill and acquired technique

I'm curious on the attached shot of Jupiter with its in focus moons why one can't see the bands of Jupiter. Jupiter appears as a overbright white ball. I assume the gain was simply to high? This was taken with limited sky quality on a 5" Mak with the Gain set to 30, Time slices at 4 seconds and the Offset set to 44. About 40 images were taken.

So the obivous question - were does one go to read / learn how to set this beast up correctly? I'm simply Googling on how to run a DSI. Are there links or posts here I should read?

Secondly can anyone spot the newbie mistakes in my setting or describe how to set up the software so Juptier appears even semi closely to as good as it does to the naked eye. The CCD had stablised for a hour or so, dew was present, the CCD was focused until each moon of Jupiter was sharp, and I ran auto set contrast and took 10 reference frames before any other frames were accepted. I also put the tracking box around Jupiter to try and avoid star trails.

I can't see a logic way of turning the brightness down if the gain is already set low. Changing the tioming of teh shot down between 0.2 seconds up to 15 seconds didn't help matters much either!

My first go:

[EzyStyles (Eric)]

great first go at jupiter g__day. The reason why you cant see the band around jupiter is because you have set gain too high. When capturing a bright object such as jupiter or saturn, lower the gain and offset level. play around the sliding bars. 0.2 second is abour right. Also , don't tick auto contrast, adjust the histogram manually but don't clip the image. I see alot of people use 'auto contrast' in envisage. Using auto will destroy your images and will remove quite alot of details. I'll say more than 50% from experience. I havent capture jupiter in awhile with the DSI might give it ago now

I will be writing up a basic tutorial on the DSI soon. Seems like there are quite a few new DSI users

gluck with it and feel free to ask away.

cheers.

[g__day (Matthew)]

Thanks matey, nowhere near as as good as watching your kids first steps,but it is a definite start and a magical moment!

I'll try setting the gain right down to zero if I have too, and the offset too.

I'll also try turning off the autocontrast annd find out what that histogram actually does and how to manipulate it!

Meanwhile the time to drift align my mount is rapidly approaching I can see!

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

g_day,

If you want to get Joop with banding AND the moons it is best to take 2 seperate avi's.

First avi: Like the one above.
2nd avi: Lower the gain and set the controls so you can see the banding.

You will most likely lose the Moons in the 2nd Avi, but that's OK coz you got them in the first avi.
After processing both, combine them in PhotoShop or similiar program. Put the Banded Joop over top of the bright Joop.

BINGO, Banded Joop WITH Moons!

[EzyStyles (Eric)]

Hi G__day,
try around the 70 mark for gain and around the 40-50 mark for offset with Jupiter. There are 2 sliders with the autocontrast histogram. white and black. adjust the black slider (top) to the left of the histogram bar and the white slider (bottom) to the right of the histogram bar. Ensure that there is no white lines from the histogram as this is clipping.

Cheers.

[EzyStyles (Eric)]

Originally Posted by ballaratdragons

g_day,

If you want to get Joop with banding AND the moons it is best to take 2 seperate avi's.

First avi: Like the one above.
2nd avi: Lower the gain and set the controls so you can see the banding.

lol Ken, you can't take avi's with the DSI . .. typical toucam users

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Sowwy, me not know

Hi, my name is Ken, and I'm a Toucamaholic

[Harpspitfire]

no advice here (so why am i typing?- LOL)- from what ive read the meade DSI does cause crashes until it gets whatever it takes to get working on the comp- i know meade products like meade mounts for compatability- i used to have a small ETX and sold it- i got disgusted with the fact it only worked with ETX accessories- ill be honest with you, i havent seen many DSI images that get planetary as good LPI images- you may want to sift through the threads at cloudynight or astromart forums- youll get an answer pretty quick- i had both a Toucam and neximage (sold the Toucam)- i found they both had the same sony chip so i kept the neximage cause it was lighter- but being windows camera- i could capture in just about anything from K3CCD, windows video, Amcap, etc- just and endless list- but i always found the 'camera setting' screen to be nearly identical no matter which program i used- maybe see if the a different program will accept the DSI and see if you can adjust the brightness from there

[Hitchhiker]

g_day, you're Jupiter shot just looks overexposed. The DSI is very much more sensitive than a webcam.

For Moon exposures with a DSI, I had the exposure time at 0.0014 to 0.0020 sec - I think 0.2 sec is just too much for Jupiter. I keep my gain up around the 80-100 area but exposure time way down. Try the Auto Exposure button - it might get you close.