ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY WITH MEADE DEEP SKY IMAGER Last updated: 31 December 2006

This page documents the Meade Deep Sky Imager and DSI Pro comments, tips, and photos. Contributions welcome. In order to showcase the DSI you may occasionally see images taken with other telescopes on this page.

Subject:	DSI-II Color Imager Color Combined Images:
Sent:	Saturday, December 30, 2006 22:42:49
From:	M. J. The Madjordainain (madjordainian@insightbb.com)
This is for Stephen Olson, Steve what is happening with your DSI-II
Color is that your have your Imaging process set to FITS Format and
"Save all Uncombined images" (This is a GOOD thing!) As the imager is
taking the subframe shots it is splitting the LRGB colors into separate
subframes for each of the color channels and storing the LRGB subframes
as -filenameL - filenameB - filenameG - filenameR.  What this means is
your will have to reassemble them using the RGB Merge command/tool found
under the "color" menu on you Autostar Image Processing Application. 
You would open the L frame in ASIP then go to the Menu and select the
RGB Merge, from there you select each of the RGB subframes with the
browse button under each of the color frame selection boxes.  The hit
the preview button and use the Gamma; Color Balance; & Saturation tools
under the color menu to adjust the colors & contrast to your liking.

OK about now your thinking and just how is this a good thing, I wanted
one shot color!  Well you CAN do that too with the DSI-II C, but you
need to set your image capture process to either of the following
formats - .JPG; .BMP; TIF; Or fits3P.  You can also set the image
capture to just save the combined finished image in the image capture
set up too, but I advise you to keep it like it is as this makes for the
best way to process your images for the best finish.  The Save All
Uncombined Images setting works for all formats too, the process under
that setting still saves you a combined final frame in each channel, it
will be named - filenameL.Fts (or RGB depending on the color channel the
subframe is from), where as the uncombined subframes will be
automatically named in numerical sequence such as -filename-1 filename-2
filename-3 ......... and on to the last uncombined subframe.  The reason
having your Autostar Envisage Capture software do it this way is it
allows you to better process your files to the better finished image. 
In ASIP 90% of the processing functions only work for monochrome 16bit
files, having the colors already separated, yet still aligned means it
you can do the processing without having to first separate  the color
channels.

As for the save all uncombined images setting it is a very good thing,
Envisage is sometimes a little 'brain damaged' when it comes to picking
the best subframes to combine or rejecting the "bad ones".  Your better
off to use the ASIP "Group" functions to visually do a quick exam of
each subframe and then having made note of the best frames kick all of
the others & the calibrate, process & combine the ones you picked as the
best.

If you just want some quick images/photos set your Envisage Capture to
.bmp or .tif, just remember when your shooting your image in those
formats what you see on your monitor screen is what you get, so tick off
the Auto contrast for sure & manually adjust your Gain; Threshold; &
Histogram sliders to display the color image you want Envisage to shoot.
 Under the "quick & dirty" mode you can elect to save all uncombined or
not, grabbing another image processing software such as Registax
(freeware) to stack, align, & process your color images.

Good Luck & Clear skies!

The Mad One
Mark Jordan
Greenfield, IN

PS Stephen Feel free to drop me an email if you have any questions! The
Mad One

Subject:	Stacking images the correct way?
Sent:	Monday, December 25, 2006 19:12:35
From:	Stephen Olson (stephen99@comcast.net)
I love your site. It has soo much info. Thank you. I just got into
imaging. I have an ETX125 PE, DSI 2 color. When I take pics of M42 I get
4 files. RGB and L. I also get many of these say between 5-100 images of
each color depending on the time i take the pics. I get all that so far,
but shouldnt the pics have color in them before anything is done? Even
when I stack them they are black and white???? Is there some
documentation that you have for the Autostar Suite Software that would
be helpful? I have tried Deep Sky Stacker and it seems easy to use, but
I may be doing something wrong. I am just looking for something that has
all the info to take and edit pics in one Article. I really appreciate
your help and just love your site.
 
thanks
 
steve

Subject:	M42 Great Orion Nebula 
Sent:	Saturday, December 2, 2006 17:26:34
From:	Tom and Lori (lortom7@earthlink.net)
Wish I could say this is "First Light" with the DSI II, but it's not,
it's the second.  Thought I'd share with you and the other Mighty ETX
folks.

Nice seeing you at OPT a few weeks ago.  Thanks for the book signature
as well.

Looking forward to Southern California clear skies.

Tom

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