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T
hey just might be the best Test Report: CCD Cameras
deal ever for amateur astron-
omers getting started in the Meade Pictor 208XT
world of digital imaging. 8-bit imaging camera and autoguider
Meades new Pictor 208XT and 216XT Meade Pictor 216XT
CCD cameras offer high-quality construc- 16-bit imaging camera and autoguider
tion, advanced operating software, and Meade Instruments Corporation
remarkably attractive prices. They certainly (through its dealer network)
rank among the best dollar values ever Suggested U.S. mail-order price
offered in the growing market of com- 208XT: $495; 216XT: $695
mercial CCD cameras.
Calling these cameras new seems un- Outwardly identical, the Pictor 208XT
usual since advertisements for the Pictor and 216XT are self-contained units ex-
208 and 216 have appeared in this maga- cept for a small box incorporated in the
zine since mid-1994. But according to power cord. For imaging, a single wire con-
Meades chief engineer, Ron Ezra, todays nects the camera to any computer running Win-
cameras have undergone significant revi- dows 3.1 or higher. Photos by Chuck Baker.
sions from the early models. This is one
of the reasons XT was added to the use the Texas Instruments TC-255 chip. The main difference between the cam-
name. The operating software has also The array of 336-by-244 10-micron-square eras is the number of brightness levels
evolved substantially. The cameras re- pixels has a slightly smaller active imag- they record. The 208XT is an 8-bit unit,
viewed here were manufactured early ing area measuring 3.2 by 2.4 millimeters. which produces images with a maximum
this year and were tested with version 6.2 Because the TC-255 is a frame-transfer 256 shades of gray. The 216XT, on the
of the PictorView XT operating software. chip with separate imaging and storage other hand, is a 16-bit camera yielding
The 208XT and 216XT are physically areas, it is capable of making very short images with 65,536 gray levels. As such,
identical. Both cameras, which exposures without a mechanical shutter. the 216XT is more desirable for serious
also double as autoguiders, The software allows exposures as brief as imaging of faint deep-sky objects,
0.004 second. though the 208XT does a very credible
Both cameras are powered by 12 volts job, especially on bright objects.
DC and draw a maximum of 1 ampere Meade describes the 208XT as a
of current. My tests were all done using black-and-white imager only, while the
the optional Meade AC adapter that 216XT can be coupled with Meades
plugs into a standard 110-volt wall model 616A filter wheel to produce tri-
outlet. Both cameras have regulated color images. Although I did not test this
thermoelectric cooling, which can feature, the software commands for ob-
chill the CCD to approximately 25 taining the individual exposures through
Celsius below the ambient air tem- red, green, and blue filters and assem-
perature and maintain it to within bling a tricolor view look sophisticated
1 C. Because regulated cooling re- but easy to use.
duces the need to take frequent
dark frames (required for process- The Hardware
ing images) while observing, more Except for a small box about the size of a
time can be spent imaging the sky. deck of playing cards integrated into the
This sophisticated cooling system is one power cord, all electronics are contained
of the features that help set the Meade within the CCD head. Each camera is 4
cameras apart from other low-cost units. inches (10 centimeters) in diameter and
1997 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Sky & Telescope September 1997 49
Using a Meade 16-inch LX200 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope at about f/6, the author made 3-minute exposures of the famous Ring Nebula,
M57, in Lyra with the Pictor 208XT (left) and 216XT (right) cameras. Although the 16-bit images from the 216XT are better for recording subtle
brightness differences of deep-sky objects, the 8-bit 208XT does a very respectable job with bright objects like M57.
2 inches (5 cm) thick and weighs 18 ory address and hardware-interrupt (IRQ) for an image binned 22. Switching to
ounces (510 grams). The active imaging status. This is done with a pair of mouse the 216XT required about 75 and 30 sec-
area is centrally located on the cameras clicks, but hunting down the correct set- onds, respectively.
face and positioned a few millimeters tings can be time consuming. In most
back from the front surface, behind an cases Com 2 uses memory address 02F8 Under the Stars
antireflection-coated window. The chip and IRQ 3. Ask anyone who has used a CCD camera
is also centered within a female T-thread The maximum communication speed what challenged them most on their first
mount, so the camera attaches to any between the camera and computer is night observing, and youll likely hear
telescope adapter having male T threads. 56,000 bits per second. Unless you have stories about focusing. Getting sharp im-
The cameras come with an adapter for special software drivers for your serial ages on a CCD chip takes a bit of time
standard 114-inch eyepiece holders. There ports, this speed is available only with and practice. But good focus is critical
is no power switch, so the cameras come Windows 95 or when running Windows for obtaining maximum performance.
to life as soon as the power cord is con- 3.1 in standard, rather than enhanced, The Meade cameras include several
nected to a 12-volt supply. They connect mode. Slower communication rates work hardware and software features that
to a computers serial port with a stand- fine but at the expense of significantly greatly simplify focusing. Unfortunately,
ard 9-pin female computer plug. increasing the time it takes to download the one that helps most with focusing the
PictorView XT runs under Windows 3.1 an image. These times also vary depend- camera the first time is explained poorly
and up but is recommended for Windows ing on the camera settings. For example, in the manual. Proving the old adage that
95. My tests were performed with an with the laptop computer (which operat- one picture is worth a thousand words,
aging 33-megahertz desktop PC with a ed at the cameras maximum communi- the photograph on page 51 shows what
486 processor running Windows 3.1 and a cation speed), the 208XT took 25 sec- the manual attempts to explain only with
100-MHz 486 laptop loaded with Win- onds to display a full-resolution image words. Using a piece of frosted tape such
dows 95. In both cases the software instal- after the exposure ended and 12 seconds as Scotch Magic Tape as a focusing
lation was flawless and screen and a spacer sup-
took only minutes. plied with the camera, you
The softwares default can easily set the tele-
settings have the camera scopes focus to the ap-
connected to the comput- proximate position of the
ers Com 1 serial port. chip before the camera is
This was the case with my attached. The process takes
laptop, and the system just a few minutes and can
worked perfectly. The work with daylight scenes
desktop machine, howev- as well as the Moon, plan-
er, had a mouse attached ets, and brighter stars.
to Com 1, so the camera The next step is to re-
was connected to Com 2. fine the focus while view-
In addition to specifying ing images. The relatively
this port in the softwares After the PictorView XT camera-control software has been loaded, several val- slow download times for
user preferences, I also ues must be set in this User Preferences dialog box. Some of the information is these cameras make the
had to set the ports mem- recorded in the file header with each image. process a bit tedious, but
50 September 1997 Sky & Telescope 1997 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
FPO CHUCK BAKER
1997 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Sky & Telescope September 1997 51
The only image processing done on this one-
minute exposure of the globular star cluster
M13 with the Pictor 216XT and 16-inch tele-
scope working at about f/6 was the subtraction
of a dark frame.
52 September 1997 Sky & Telescope 1997 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
The default format for saving 208XT tates a second available
and 216XT images is FITS, which stands comm port, which neither
for Flexible Image Transport System my laptop nor desktop
the most widely accepted standard for as- computer had.
tronomical images. Files can also be saved It would take many
in a variety of other formats including nights to just try all the
Tagged Image File Format (TIFF), bitmap functions possible with
(BMP), and Joint Photographic Experts the software, let alone de-
Group (JPEG). JPEG is acceptable for scribe them in this article.
images to be viewed rather than analyzed Nevertheless, I did find
for scientific content, since JPEG is a several bugs that only
compressed format that loses varying occurred when working
amounts of the original image data de- with images from the
pending on the amount of compression. 208XT. The dialog box for
With PictorView XT, however, there is no adding images together
provision for specifying the level of com- lists six different options,
pression. It appears to be set rather high including averaging the
since some images showed visible degra- pixel values of two im- With the Pictor 208XT attached to a 5-inch f/10 Celestron
dation after being saved in JPEG format. ages. Neither the printed Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, the author made this 0.01-sec-
By the way, nothing prevents the same manual nor the softwares ond exposure of the Moons terminator near the large crater
image from being saved in many differ- online help section ex- Clavius on June 28th. Lunar imaging with focal ratios faster
ent formats, and for this reason I always plained how these func- than f/5 usually requires filters to prevent overexposure.
saved the original as a FITS file. tions work. The Median
In addition to the basic image-calibra- Combine Images option is obviously a Autoguiding
tion procedures that are expected of any variation of Average Images, but what I experimented briefly with the auto-
CCD camera operating system, Pic- does OR Images mean? More important, guiding capability of the 208XT and
torView XT offers some advanced fea- however, was the fact that every option 216XT. In the stand-alone mode, which
tures. There are several image-sharpening except the straightforward add images requires no computer, the cameras ap-
routines. For image calibration there is a command caused the computers to crash pear to operate exactly like the 201XT re-
nice method for subtracting a dark frame when applied to 8-bit images. viewed by Alan Dyer last month (page
that was made at a different temperature Another obvious bug involved manu- 51). Since the 208XT and 216XT have
or has a different exposure duration than ally setting the pixel values that are to cooled chips, which produce less elec-
the image frame. The software has a appear as black and grayscale in a dis- tronic noise than the uncooled CCD in
great routine for blink-comparing two played image (the background and range the 201XT, they should be able to guide
images the technique many observers values). Invoking this fundamental oper- on fainter stars. I did not, however, make
use to discover comets, asteroids, super- ation from the dialog box caused the a side-by-side comparison.
novae, and variable stars. computers to crash. Fortunately, these Unlike the 201XT, these cameras can
Some camera features work exclusively display parameters can also be adjusted also be used as autoguiders when con-
with Meade LX200 telescopes. For exam- by pressing the arrow keys on the com- nected to a computer. This offers features
ple, you can automatically take a mosaic puter. Since this method is interactive, not available in the stand-alone mode.
of images to be assembled later into a with the image changing as the keys are The most noteworthy is the ability to se-
single view. Using these features requires pressed, it is actually a much easier and lect the object within the CCDs field to
that the telescope and camera have sepa- better way to make these adjustments. guide on (in stand-alone mode the
rate links to the computer. This necessi- Experience has shown that most CCD- guider simply selects the brightest object
camera manufacturers in the field, which may not be the best
quickly resolve software choice if there are two objects of nearly
bugs, and the ones equal brightness).
mentioned here may Both the 208XT and 216XT represent
have been fixed in the an amazing dollar value when you com-
update that was pend- pare camera quality, software features,
ing when this review and base price to other units available
was written. Meade today. The 8-bit 208XT is a fine autogu-
maintains a site on the ider and a relatively inexpensive way to
World Wide Web (http:// get started in CCD imaging. If, however,
www.meade.com/) where you want to pursue faint deep-sky ob-
the latest version of Pic- jects or try your hand at tricolor imag-
torView XT is available ing, then I would strongly recommend
for downloading, so up- spending the extra money for the 16-bit
This dialog box shows the many exposure options. Sixteen set- dates are never more 216XT. I cant help but think that these
ups can be saved for recall with a single mouse click, thus elimi- than an Internet connec- cameras will get a lot of people started in
nating hassles when taking routine exposures. tion away. world of CCD astronomy.
1997 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Sky & Telescope September 1997 53