first attempts with meade lpi

Stephen,
Great shots there, looks like the lpi cuts it pretty well for lunar and probabily planetary images, whats the longest exposure you can get out of it, assuming you have perfect tracking and no light pollution ??
Is the chip size 320X240?, have you tried autoguiding with it ?
What kind of control do you have over the exposure and contrast etc ??

Like John said, the detail in the lava plains are great, diddn't see any flag though

Michael,
I'm going to wait and see how it autoguides for you before I (might) get one,

dave,
it is 640 x 480 and the longest is 15 secs if you see above link to the website. you can control the exposure times and you can let the camera adjust it's settings or you can set them yourself. it can automatically stack or you can get it to save them individually in a variety of formats. i haven't tried it to autoguide yet.
stephen.

Great shots!

Is it as easy to use as a webcam? How much control do you have over the stacking process - can you select the best frame etc?

btw has anyone seen the new deep sky imager that Meade are now advertising? Looks pretty impressive with an 8 inch lx200 at f/3.3, images on th meade site.

Dave Gradwell

Dave,
Apparently the lpi isn't as good as the toucam pro for planetary stuff. It's to do with the sensitivity of the chip and the maximum frame rate which it can relay to the pc. It has a built-in stacking feature whuch then relays an image to the pc every 1.5 secs or something of that order. At least, that's what I've been told. Mine is arriving tomorrow so I hope to provide more info then. For me the benefits of it are the fact that the autostar suite software can read info from it and relay it to the scope for autoguiding and pec-training purposes. I'd still use the toucam pro from planetary stuff and this is what Cor Berrevoets recommends also. However, considering the lpi is going free as part of the new lx series scopes, it's a good deal!
As for the deep sky imager, it looks good alright. Who was traking the images though...Damina Peach or Joe Bloggs?? Where were the images taken...Arizona or central Dublin??
Michael

Dave,
Where were the images taken...Arizona or central Dublin??
Michael

Thats what I always think when I see images in a telescope add !!
and I'd bet the the scope used wasn't picked at random off the production line, if you know what I mean

Hi Al,
Just had a look at the following comparison review of the LPI versus the Toucam Pro
www.cloudynights.com/lab/astrophotography/meadelpi2.pdf

Despite all the bells, flags and whistles of the LPI, the toucam wins on image quality by a mile on planetary images, a pity.

Heres another review where the images are much more comparabile but the Toucam just nudges ahead

www.covingtoninnovations.com/astro/MeadeLPI/

It wont autoguide the older LX200, so that me out.