ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY WITH MEADE LUNAR PLANETARY IMAGER Last updated: 23 December 2008

Subject:	photo of Albireo & Moon
Sent:	Friday, December 19, 2008 21:33:37
From:	Neil Sumner (dishjunkie92069@yahoo.com)
I just wanted to pass this on. This is one of My First Photo's Taken
With my Meade125-PE With my LPI sitting in a opt. double Barlow Its a
photo of Albireo & one of the Moon.

And:

Hi Mike, Sorry to be a pest I forgot to add these Here is a Shot of
Venus here to you can see that it appears to be 3/4 Venus with the LPI.
Next is a telescope mount I made. I had an Aluminum Plate made so not to
throw off the LNT True North. Looking right off my porch too see the sky
is way kewl. But all the wires lpi cable w/16 ft USB Hub, 12 v power
wire, 505 wire to control scope with. I can't wait to get a 1247 walking
over to focous all the time is getting old. Well talk to ya later And
Happy Holydays to ya
 
P.S Let me know what ya think of my scope mount.

Subject:	Re: LPI questions
Sent:	Saturday, November 8, 2008 05:36:15
From:	Terry Godfrey (terry.godfrey@mypostoffice.co.uk)
Here are a couple of single frame JPG shots from my first attempts at
using the LPI (and Envisage 7.05) on the Moon on 7th November 2008.

Regards

Terry Godfrey. Oxford, UK

Subject:	LPI questions
Sent:	Thursday, November 6, 2008 07:51:45
From:	Terry Godfrey (terry.godfrey@mypostoffice.co.uk)
I have just purchased a Meade LPI and AutoStar Suite and before
attempting some images of the Moon etc. with my ETX 125AT (weather is
terrible anyway!), I thought it would be worth familiarising myself with
the operation on some static daylight terrestrial objects.

I found Meade's LPI Camera Program Manual less than user friendly and
hit upon several problems and would be obliged if you could help.

1) According to the LPI manual (page 14) the supplied Parfocal Ring is
recommended to be used with a 26mm eyepiece. However, on my ETX 125AT,
after fully inserting the LPI into the eyepiece holder and focusing in
the normal way and then replacing the LPI with the 26mm eyepiece and
Parfocal Ring, the eyepiece has to be almost fully withdrawn from the
holder with only about 3mm remaining below the Parfocal Ring before it
come into focus! Fortunately, I have a 32mm eyepiece and this together
with the Parfocal Ring sits a little lower in the eyepiece holder. OK,
so this is not a big deal.

2) The next problem I came up against was the use of the 'Magic Eye
Focus' . According to the LPI manual (page21), "The Magic Eye Focus
displays a graphic representation of the focus as you adjust your
telescope's focuser. The orange triangles "grow" together to indicate
better focus. The red lines indicate maximum focus levels."

On my screen, the Magic Eye Focus panel remains a blank grey box
whatever focusing adjustments I make. As accurate focusing is of
paramount importance for obtaining good images I would like to get this
to work.

3) There are many differences on my AutoStar DSI/LPI Envisage Imaging
Software Version 4, compared with the supplied LPI manual.

Although I have not yet needed this option, I am confused by the LPI
manual's section on 'Tracking Boxes and Centroids' (page 23). Having
created a tracking box the manual says to "Check the Track Box". But
there is no Track Box on my version. Is tracking enabled simply by
drawing the box around a bright object?

Also under the drop down menu "LPI" alongside "Tracking" is a box
labelled "Dark Spot". Creating a tracking box and 'checking' "Dark Spot"
appears to move the tracking box to a dark area of the displayed image.
I have no idea what this feature is supposed to achieve. The manual goes
on to say: " If you're tracking a crater on the Moon, draw the box about
the centre or a bright spot in the crater. Normally, you will check the
Track box. However if you're imaging the Moon, uncheck the Track box."

So for tracking the Moon, is the Track box checked or NOT?

I guess this is enough to getting on with and I have looked at Meade's
tutorial video for the DSI (no LPI tutorial) and other pages on your
excellent site but cannot get to the bottom of these questions.

Regards

Terry Godfrey, Oxford UK

And:

Thanks for the quick response. The Meade CD originally installed
AutoStar Suite V3.18 which incorporated the LPI imaging program Envisage
4.0. As you suggested, I updated to AutoStar Suite V5.00 but Envisage is
still at V4.0.

Therefore I still cannot get the Magic Eye Focus to work.

If anyone has any suggestions I would be grateful. (I am running with XP
Pro).

Regards

Terry Godfrey

And:

Thanks again.  I tried  updating to Envisage 7.05 for use with my LPI.
There are some additional features on this version but the Magic Eye
Focus panel still remains blank during  focusing. Interestingly, the
Magic Eye Focus panel transforms into a 3D contour map when a tracking
box is created around an object although this contour map does not
change during any refocusing so I'm not sure what its purpose is?  What
a pity Meade doesn't supply decent manuals for the use of their
products.

I appreciate your effort with this problem.

Regards

Terry Godfrey

Subject:	A question about to Meade L.P.I.
Sent:	Thursday, August 28, 2008 12:55:53
From:	Mike Thomas (michael.thomas827@ntlworld.com)
Hi, my name is Mike Thomas, I am a keen amateur astronomer and I have
just purchased the Meade L.P.I. , of which I have a questionI have set
it up in the day to use on a terrestrial object, and the image was
upside down on my laptop, could you explain this please? I know that the
image is the right way up, but left to right when you use a refractor
with a diagonal normally, and I was wondering if the L.P.I., not being a
lens as such, just flipped the image it recieves upside down. I know it
doesn't make much difference on planetary shots, but I would like to
know what to flip, when I get my lunar shots. Any explanation of its
shot orientation would be very much appreciated.  Sorry to bother you
about this trivial question, but thanks for reading.
 
All the best, Mike Thomas.

Subject:	mead l p i suite and trust webcam 14823
Sent:	Friday, April 4, 2008 13:27:51
From:	PATRICK GARLAND (patrickgarland@btinternet.com)
i bought the lpi suite for my etx 90 2months ago cant get it to work the
reason is windows vista only shows this as trust webcam 14823what i want
to know is if i bought a trust webcam would it work i know this is not
your scene but mybe someone out there might be abel to tell me thank for
all your help  paddy g

Subject:	Pics for guest astro gallery
Sent:	Thursday, March 20, 2008 04:18:52
From:	alb (abest@zoom.co.uk)
Thought I would send you my first nights attempts with the Meade LPI for
your guests atro gallery section

Quite pleased with the results for a first attempt.

Both taken using a Meade ETX 90PE

If anyone has any suggestions on how to bring out more detail in saturn
images I would be very gratefull

Cheers
ABest
from
Light polluted Manchester in Englan UK

Go to the September-November 2007 LPI Page.

Go to the April-August 2007 LPI Page.

Go to the January-March 2007 LPI Page.

Go to the July-November 2006 LPI Page.

Go to the May-June 2006 LPI Page.

Go to the March-April 2006 LPI Page.

Go to the January-February 2006 LPI Page.

Go to the October-December 2005 LPI Page.

Go to the July-September 2005 LPI Page.

Go to the May-June 2005 LPI Page.

Go to the March-April 2005 LPI Page.

Go to the January-February 2005 LPI Page.

Go to the October-December 2004 LPI Page.

Go to the July-September 2004 LPI Page.

Go to the April-June 2004 LPI Page.

Go to the January-March 2004 LPI Page.

Go to the 2003 LPI Page.

Go back to the Astrophotography Page.

Go back to my ETX Home Page.