I've been a skygazer since my parents bought me a dinky 40 mm department telescope when I was 9. I got a lot of moon gazing out of that toy which started a lifelong hobby. Fast forward to day and I now use a Meade 127 ED(5 inch) refractor telescope which I bought back in 1990.
In 2001 I decided to try my hand at deep sky imaging using a modified Philips webcam. I tech savvy guy named Bob White from California was kind enough to surgically alter the webcam for me for a mere $60. I got quite a bit of use out of the camera until a couple of years ago when my parallel port equipped laptop died. A native parallel port was necessary to use the camera and as today's laptops lack parallel ports I was put into limbo.
Last week I decided to jump back in with a Meade DSI-II (deep sky imager). The DSI-2 price had recently been cut to $299. I was actually able to score one from Telescopes.com for $285 including Fedex shipping. The DSI-2 arrived Friday 13.
It's been cloudy and wet since Friday, thus I have had no chance to test the camera astronomically. Current forecasts for this area(Greater Boston) indicate I'll be lucky to give the camera a real world test by the weekend. Meanwhile I'm familiarizing myself with the camera and the Envisage imaging software.
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