Chuck Reese and the Deep Sky Imager II™ 
Chuck Reese writes of his Deep Sky Imager II

"As a happy DSI owner of one year, I was really curious to see what Meade could do to top the original camera.

Actually, I was a little skeptical as I hooked up the DSI II and brought it to focus. My first reaction was "Wow!". The increased resolution is significant, and immediately apparent on the preview screen. And the new Zoom feature made focusing fast and easy.

I then trained my scope on M27, the Dumbbell nebula. My second reaction was "Wow! - Do I have the wrong focal reducer in place?". The increased chip size was much more noticeable than I expected - the field of view with the DSI II at F10 is roughly the same as the original DSI at F6.3.

I proceeded to take a preview exposure of 30 seconds duration. My third reaction was "Wow! - This camera is way more sensitive!". In fact I was able to see the little red Ha "wings" of M27 clearly in that single, 30 second preview exposure.

As I examined the preview image, my next reaction was "Wow! The DSI II nailed the difficult to reproduce teal color of the nebula's strong OIII region". And the camera found the correct color balance automatically, displaying the accurate color on the preview image itself.

The rest of that first night was pretty much like that, one target after another, excellent color, comfortable, wide FOV's, incredible detail.

It wasn't until the second night out that I came to appreciate the new automatic dark frame management system. After going through my setup routine, I went to my first target for the night...and realized, I did not have to take dark frames because the Envisage software would match the operating temperature of the chip to the correct dark frames taken from previous sessions. My reaction? "Wow - this thing is a time machine!". All those hours formerly spent taking dark frames now go to taking pictures...what a fantastic feature this is!

My hat is off to Meade...I was expecting an incremental step forward - the DSI II is more like a quantum leap! The DSI II is a genuine pleasure to use, and the quality of images it produces are on a par with cameras costing many times as much. Well done!

TWO IS BETTER THAN ONE

How sweet it is" to image with a pair of DSI II's!

Using the color camera to capture the RGB data, and the Pro version to capture the Luminance data shortens overall data acquisition times and simplifies post processing.

I use one DSI to image, and the other to guide. 30 minutes to one hour of color, and one hour of luminance is all you need to to produce stunning images with pinpoint stars, exquisite detail, and incredible color fidelity.

The automatic dark frame management system makes every minute of precious imaging time count...and the Pro/Color combo ensures maximum results with minimal effort."

Chuck Reese
Prior Lake, MN