Meade - Deep Sky Imager Pro CCD Camera and LRGB Filter Package

THIS REVIEW APPLIES TO THE DEEP SKY IMAGER. . .THE ORIGINAL VERSION.

I want to be very clear. The reason this review applies to Meade's Original DSI is because I've had so many problems with it, I would NEVER buy another DSI from Meade. The customer support from Meade is nearly non-existent. Go to their website and TRY to find an e-mail address for customer support: you'll find an address, a phone number--but no where to e-mail questions or upload images or problems.

Fix after Fix after software fix; you'll see if you go to their website and find the "support" postings. The problems, which it has taken me, LITERALLY, two years to figure out:

a. YOU will MOST likely NOT be able to image on your first night out.
b. The software instruction manual is bare-bones. It does little to help an amateur take the first photos. . .
c. The infra-red filter attaches to the nose-piece of the imager--without rubber bumpers. I no sooner had opened my new DSI, but I broke the glass IR filter. . .BANG! Broken filter. . .new instrument out of the box!
d. This imager is NOT backwards compatible with USB 1.0 or 1.1. YOU MUST have USB 2.0 ports on your computer
e. IF you buy a USB card, for your laptop, you'd better buy one that you can power with a power-adapter. . .otherwise your motherboard on your computer will NOT be able to provide enough power to power the USB and the data coming to it from the camera. (This took me a year of trial and error to learn)
f. You MUST have a computer with at least a Pentium 2.0 gigahertz processor.
g. I would recommend at least 1 or 2 GB of Ram, too.


About one month ago, I sent screen shots (by mail--because they don't have an e-mail address) to Meade's "technical" customer support. It contained screen shots, photo's of my computer set-up, etc. To date, I've heard zip.

Buy a real CCD camera: buy one from the Santa Barbara Instruments Group (SBIG). . .and leave Meade alone. In my experience, including their telescopes, most of their products are over-priced, under supported, and have significant quality defects. This is a company that needs a severe internal overhall. You have choices: Celesteron, Takahashi, Astrozap, etc. Meade is NOT the company they advertise THEMSELVES to be. Go to Google and type in "Meade DSI Reviews" and find out for yourself.

Having experience in astrophotography for only a very short time, I thought I would try the Meade DSI Pro, I have used a Solar System Imager on a few occasions and found it fairly easy to use, I expected the DSI Pro would be a bit more of a learning curve. For starters the DSI Pro is everything Meade says it is, I have put together some very nice images that have impressed many people, not too bad for a rookie. Attaching the camera to your scope and computer is very easy, obtaining focus and getting your image is a little more complicated, and all the rest is extremely difficult to figure out on your own or trying to find help on the web. This nice and powerful imager could really use a completely detailed instruction manual. It comes with a quick set up version manual, RGB filter and filter slide set, Autostar Suite software, and USB 2.0 connection cable. The software has an instruction manual on it, but again leaves alot to be desired, no examples of when and where to use long or short exposures, or any of the settings for that matter, the software also has a image processor, but again almost no helpful instructions, I have yet to use the RGB filter or slide because aside from explaining how to put the filters into the slide, there are absolutely no instructions or examples on how to use this feature, all my colors have been added in Photoshop. I take it that Meade assumes that everyone using this fine imager has had experience using another make or model. I am by no means a tech geek, but I have a home recording studio with digital recorders, sequencers and midi mapping that all have complete instruction manuals that explain procedures and functions in great detail. I have had to search the web for most of the info on the many questions I have had for setting exposure time to using the processing software, and have yet to find some info on how to use the RGB filters and combine them. I have about 20 hours into this on actual photography and processing and 2 months of searching for or trying to figure out certain procedures or functions, that to me is not a good ratio. I would have given this item a 5 star rating, but without detailed explanations in a instruction manual, DVD, or website I can only justify 4 stars, for the camera itself is very powerful and amazing, you really can get images like a pro and amaze yourself and others. Overall the Meade DSI Pro is a fantastic deep sky camera and I would reccomend it to anybody, it just suffers from the lack of instructions, and that leaves alot to be desired, hopefully Meade will put out a tutorial DVD and include it in future packages.