The Meade DSI Pro Needs re-engineering?

[dmill1220]

Hi People!
I am Curious as to how many people in this forum own the DSI pro with the filter set, and if they have had the same problems with it that I have seemed to encounter. although still a great little camera for those of us just starting to learn the CCD Craze here is what I have run into

1) filters are exposed to the elements and dew and dust bunnies are a problem unless the owner devises a shield of some sort.

2) you have to refocus with each color filter, Astrodon filters would be better.

3) they have mistakenly made the filterslide for 4 filters R, G, B, & IR.
if you place the IR filter in the slide then your RGB data sets are bloated due to IR, the IR blocker should go in the nosepiece!
and used in conjunction with the RGB filters.

4) a nasty light leak is evident due to the nature of the slide opening and the excessive tolerances incorporated with an adjustable click stop on the camera body for each filter used.
a better approach would be an enclosed filter wheel with a readout of which filter is bieng used. its hard to tell with the current design which filter is in the optical path.

5) the added distance from the chip to the nosepiece thread due to the filter slide bieng installed behind the nosepiece causes problems with focal reduction especially since the IR filter should be used for each colored filter, add this to the nosepiece and then a focal reducer, and bang! too much reduction, resulting in oblong stars at the edges of the field or if you move the Ir blocker to the outside, and the focal reducer to the inside, results in not enough focal reduction.

6) the CCD chip is also semi exposed to the elements and particles fall on to the chip sometimes when sliding the filter slide through its click stops.

I have now resorted to using this great little starter Camera in MONO only, and I have taped up the filter slide opening to prevent light leaks and dust bunnies.
is anyone else having these problems?
Dennis

[Darryl]

Hi Dennis,

I use a DSI Pro for guiding now. Its a great little camera and the points you have made are are valid and common with this camera. The light leak you mention, could it be amp glow which dark frames will remove?

I have had a lot of fun imaging with my DSI Pro. I mainly use my Orion StarShoot Deep Space Imager now even though it is less sensitive than the DSI Pro. I like the Orion color imager as it does single shot color which helps me make more use of the limited time I have when I do get a chance to go out and image.

Regards,

[dmill1220]

Hi Darryl,
I wish that were the Case, then amp glow would be no problem to deal with,
before I Fixed the light leak, by just taping the slide openings with electrical tape, I noticed the leak when taking dark frames.
there are a couple of street lamps from where I observe in the field In front of my Community Complex, the skies are fairly dark, Mag 6.5 with no problem, I noticed that if I stood in front of the intruding street lamps almost 150 yds away, I would not get the light leak with the filter slide installed, but when I moved away from the Scope, and let the lamp light reach my DSI pro slide, I would then see it in all of my darks, and as a light gradient in my images.
it also depended on what angle my scope was in when darks were taken.
I usually take my dark frames with my scope pointed at a rough Polar alignment, which is just the right angle from the street lamp to find its way onto the ccd chip via internal reflectons from the small gap between the filter slide and the camera body.
I had come up with a fix for this, I believe I posted a remedy under need a Dew shield for Your Dsi in this same section we are in now, but then I still had the dew problem just by moving the slidecinto the exposed side of the dew shield, it was also hard not to slightly jog the scope out of frame alignment for each filter exposure due to the fact that I had to use just a liitle more pressure to move the slide past the first fliter when the slide had to make its first protrusion in to the other side of the Dew shield.
the dew shield had to be tight so you had to spread the dew shield while pushing on the slide for the second filter set .
I used to use my slide from right to left, first was Red with IR, then blue with IR, and finally green with IR, since the first, or red filter did not protrude into the other side of the dew shield, I would knock my frame alignment out by applying the force needed to spread the Dew shield apart while pushing on the slide to get past the first filter exposure. here is a pick of what I devised but then later abandoned, due to this difficulty. once you had completed exposures in high humidity or frost conditions this would build up on the other side of the dew shield so it had to be cleaned after each filter set was exposed and another Imaging run was started.

This was way too much trouble to go through for my tastes so I just removed the slide and taped the slide openings shut and use it in mono only,when Iwant Color Inow resort to the DSI oneshot color camera
Dennis

[Darryl]

This was way too much trouble to go through for my tastes so I just removed the slide and taped the slide openings shut and use it in mono only,when Iwant Color Inow resort to the DSI oneshot color camera.

Hi Dennis,

Thanks for posting the image of your DSI Pro Dew Shield.

I find the DSI Pro an excellent guide camera because of its sensitivity but like you found it better to go to a single shot color for similar reasons when imaging. Until I can afford to get a different camera that accepts a proper filter wheel (automated preferably) I will just enjoy using my Orion DeepSpace Color imager. It will be interesting to see what comes out in the market for entry level ccd cameras in the next couple of years.