I was doing some visual observing with my Meade LX70 refractor. I then tried connecting my Canon T3i and was disappointed with the results. I was looking at Jupiter and could make out some of the bands and the moon with the different eyepieces but the image was way too small on the image with the Canon. So, I did a test some tests. I tested all three of my telescopes (Meade ETX90EC, Meade LX70 refractor, Meade Lightbridge 10”) with my two cameras (Canon T3i and ZWO AS103MC).

The results are in this wiki article called “Image Size Test”.

The first thing that is interesting is of course the difference between the image with the 55 MM camera lens and any of the telescope images. But, the more critical comparison is between the telescopes themselves using the different cameras.

The ZWO camera results is significantly closer image than the Canon regardless of which telescope is used.

When comparing the ZWO images, I was surprised the ETX had a larger image even though it is a small diameter. I will need to do more research. The Lightbridge image is very puzzling. It is a significantly larger diameter and the image isn’t a similar order of magnitude bigger. In fact, the Lightbridge doesn’t look much bigger than the ETX.

Related to the Barlow, the image size is noticeably larger.

Though not related to this test, the blurry images are a problem but again the test was during the day going through a window.

To summarize, interesting results and will need another test using a night time object like the moon.

Tagged: Canon, ETX, LightBridge, LX70, Meade, T3i, ZWO