Playing with the Meade LPI Imager
In 2004, I acquired a Meade LPI (Lunar/Planetary Imager) and started playing around with it using the ETX telescopes. My initial set up looked like this:
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Here's the initial setup of the Meade ETX-125EC on my Milburn Wedge (used for the LX-200) sitting in the unfinished structure of my observatory. |
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On the tail end of the telescope you can see the LPI imager. It's a very small and light weight "glorified" web-cam. But it's the software that makes the little camera so powerful. |
I started taking photos the night of February 25, 2004 and here are a few of the Moon and Jupiter and Saturn taken that night and on the following nights....
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Here is sunrise on the beautiful crater named Theophilus. |
And sunrise on Piccolomini and it's rough surrounding area.
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| Here's an interesting shot of the crater called Arzachel. Notice the rill running along side the little crater near the central peak. | A quick image of mighty Jupiter and two of it's moons (Io and Europa). |
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| The crater Ptolemaeus is an amazing view under good seeing conditions. | I couldn't resist at least trying to take a few snapshots of beautiful Saturn while I was out there. Not bad but with a little more practice they should be better. |
| And on a different night, one of Mars. |
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For under $100 (plus laptop if you don't already have one) it's hard to beat this combination for taking pictures of the brighter solar system objects. The software used to run this camera is very capable also with the ability to "follow" the image around as it takes photos. This camera isn't advertised as one capable of taking deep sky images (though many keep trying) and the few attempts I made confirmed this fact, but having this and one of the long exposure ccd cameras does make an ideal combination allowing the amateur to image a variety of objects.