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Jim's Mobile (JMI)
Hard Case for Meade 8" LX90 or LX200GPS
Price $375.00
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Vixen
50mm Lanthanum LV Eyepiece - 2"
Price $179.00
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CCD Imaging info
What are some advantages of CCD imaging as compared to photographic
imaging?
Because of a CCD chip’s greatly increased light-sensitivity
compared to film, exposure times are typically much shorter; as stated above, a
2-minute unguided exposure of the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) with the Meade 216XT
CCD Imager, for example, outresolves photographic exposures of 30 minutes’
duration. This CCD imaging provides instant gratification—the image is
immediately visible on your PC display as soon as it has been taken, without the
normal darkroom work required of film. In addition film suffers from a
phenomenon called reciprocity failure: the photographic emulsion becomes less
and less sensitive as exposure time is increased; by contrast, the response
curve of a CCD imager is linear: twice the exposure time yields exactly twice
the results. And, post-exposure image processing provides an amazing level of
image enhancement, an enhancement that is simply not possible with film. With
advanced image processing techniques, CCD images through amateur telescopes have
been taken of Jupiter, for example, that exceed the level of detail that can be
photographed through the largest telescopes on Earth. As Mr. Jack Newton, one of
the world’s foremost CCD imaging specialists, has said: "When I attach the Meade
Pictor 416XT or 1616XTE to my 16" LX200 and expose and co-add a couple of
ten-minute exposures at a random position in the sky, I am imaging faint
background galaxies that quite likely have never been imaged before with any
telescope, amateur or professional."
Are you saying, then, that photography, and particularly astrophotography,
is an obsolete science?
Absolutely not. Even the largest CCD chips are small compared to the formats of common films. The Meade Pictor 1616XTE
includes one of the largest CCD units (13.80mm x 9.20mm in dimensions) currently available, and yet it images an area less than 20% of the standard 35mm film
format. There is little question but that the future of imaging, whether for astronomy or for recording a family gathering, lies in the CCD chip: simply put,
the boundaries of CCD imaging are almost endless; the boundaries of photographic imaging, for all its rich history, are not.
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