Customer Reviews

Celestron NexImage Solar System Imager

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I purchased this camera from Amazon and have had a few weeks to test it out. Overall, I've found it to be an excellent tool for lunar and planetary imaging. It is easy to get started using, but to get really good images, you'll need to spend some time and you'll need to be technically adept. A few points are worth noting for newbies. All astro cameras in this price range are essentially webcams that have been modified to capture video through a telescope. This technology achieves image quality by sampling the best frames from the video and then stacking them on top of each other. This results in much more fine detail. This camera comes with two different pieces of software that must be used. The capture software gives a real-time view of the scope video, which allows you to focus, but you must be able to see the laptop screen while you adjust focus on the scope (unless you have a focus motor). The AMCap capture software also allows you to tune the brightness, contrast, frame capture rate and other important video quality metrics. Tuning the capture is a real art and takes practice. The second piece of software is the Registax post processing package. It takes the recorded video, collects and orients the moving image frames and allows you to tune the detail by bringing out features from different frames. The Registax package is relatively technical to use and is a bit intimidating. It takes several attempts to learn how to use it at a basic level, but the instruction PDF provided is very well done. Celestron's support faq site for this camera notes that the camera's internal BIOS can be modified to operate in RAW (uncompressed) avi mode, which will improve its image quality by about 2x. I downloaded the 3rd party utility to do this and also downloaded a better image capture program that allows easier processing of the RAW avi files. After spending several hours learning how CCD video imaging works and upgrading/tweaking, I was getting what I consider to be excellent planetary images with my Celestron NexStar 130 SLT Newtonian. This camera does not allow the use of eyepieces, but can be used with a Barlow. It is equivalent to a fixed 5mm eyepiece. I also bought the optional reducer (see my review of it). Because of the fixed focal character of the CCD chip, this camera is optimized for planetary and lunar imaging (I also did some filtered solar images), but it would be hard to get good deep space images with it, and a reducer is needed for the moon or sun, as they will fill the viewing area several time over. All in all, this is a great tool for the money and lets you produce really nice planetary images for a small price. However, if you're a newbie, you should plan to spend a weekend researching, tweaking and practicing before you get decent results. You can capture quick single frame stills, but they will be disappointing. The stacking and post processing is really needed to get good images.

I bought one of these to use for planets.

Setting it up to work with the laptop was very easy.

Unfortunately, the nose is only 1.21" wide, so it wobbles in the scope - making it very tough to aim.

Next time, I'll try putting a plastic sleeve on it to get it closer to 1.25" - with that, I expect it'll perform well.

The price is certainly attractive. And pictures I've seen from others with this camera are impressive. If the nose was the right size, I'd have given it 5 stars.

Update 7/21/06: I contacted Celestron about the problem with the adapter, and they sent a replacement that is 1.251 inches in diameter. It's a hair large, but should work fine. I'm unable to change my rating on an edit, but this shows they were responsive to a problem, and I give them credit for that.

On this basis, while my rating shows a 3, I feel it deserves a 5.

This has got to be one of the easiest telescope imager/camera around. This imager goes in place of the eyepiece and the images instantly appear on the laptop computer screen. The included image processing software is very user friendly. The driver loads quickly in seconds. It is very exciting to see astro images of the moon and details on the lunar craters. The CCD chip is highly sensitive and gives you excellent detail even at low light conditions. The photographic magnification of this imager gives you a remarkable 150x. I have not tried it on Jupiter but I am certain that I won't be disappointed. Great purchase!

I purchased this 6 months ago and have used it quite a bit. First things first. You won't get fantastic shots with it. I knew that when I purchased it. I'd describe the quality as slightly less than a cell phone in a dark room. The real fun happens when you take 50 shots and then stack them. I have a Macbook Pro and had to install VMWare fusion to get this up and running. All of the software included with the webcam (and that's what this is) only work with Windows.

I have taken many shots of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. I took a few of the moon and I didn't like them. The brightness of the moon was... off. To this day, the NexImage has taken my best shot of Jupiter. I also have a Canon XSI and an adapter to hook it up to my Celestron 6Se. My DSLR obviously takes much better shots of the moon and sometimes planets, but this little webcam put together my best planetary shot. If you're looking to get into Deep Sky Imaging, invest in something different. I tried to get a shot of the Orion Nebula and this little guy just can't do it.

Overall, the NexImage is a decent way to get into Astrography - planetary Astrography that is. If you're using an unguided mount, I'm pretty sure this is the way I'd go. Obviously, if you invested more than $1000 in your telescope, I'm sure you could scrounge up $500 more to buy a DSLR to get better pictures. But I'd only invest in that if you're sure you'll like Astrography. It's a cruel mistress. You can literally spend all night trying to get a good shot, and then when you see your finished product, you'll be less than underwhelmed. It takes a lot of practice, a lot of patience, and a lot of luck. So, investing a hundred dollars in the NexImage might be a good way to determine if you even want to continue with Astropgrahy.

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I recently bougth a camera and it is not compatible with Windows 7, and CELESTRON people said they don't have the drivers for W7 only for XP (Should i change my computer!!, ja...)- so my camera is in the box on the top of the bookshelf in my house - ít's very expensive to return it since I don't live in the USA. It's a gadget without future technology, in other words it is a waste of time and money.

This camera is not compatible with Windows Vista 64 bit operating system. If you're running 32 bit Vista you're fine except you have to download and install the new driver. I'll gladly sell you mine. It's never been used.

I was very disappointed with the nexImage. The barrel was crossed threaded and I could not remove it to insert the Celestron Neximager reducer lens. I called Celestron and they cofirmed that that is a problem with this device. They were to get back to me in a couple of days to resolve the issue. A week went by and no one called. Overall the product shows signs of poor workmanship. I returned the product back to Ace Camera. I am waiting on a refund. I would not recommend this product.

I could not even install this camera as it is not compatible with Windows 7. I tried the patch but it still did not work.

I bought this to use with a 20+ year old 4" Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope (f/12). The first night I used it to image Jupiter at its close approach in September. I initially found it difficult to find Jupiter thru the imager, despite centering it with an eyepiece before switching to the imager. Then I realized I was way out of focus (much different focal plane for the imager). Once I turned the focus knob a few revolutions, there it was. I had to reduce the gain using the included software to see details on the surface. At least with my system you can either see the cloud belts or the moons, not both at the same time. The images on the computer screen were so-so but once I aligned and stacked the images with Registax, the picture was more than I expected for such a modest telescope. The equitorial belt was vivid (one missing at this time) and several smaller belts were also seen. One photo shows the Great Red Spot and another shows a moon or it's shadow as a small dark spot on the surface of Jupiter. Overall, this was more than I had hoped for with this imager for Jupiter considering my small telescope.

Some notes:

You don't necessarily need tracking but it makes your life much easier. With decent magnification, you will lose objects from your field of view before you can record a few hundred frames for stacking. Even with tracking on my scope, I would have to tweek the declination between photos to keep things in the frame.

The image size of Jupiter at prime focus with my telescope an this imager was perfect. For the moon, the magnification was too high. I could only photograph small sections and the quality was so-so. With Jupiter, you could start with the planet at the top of the frame and film it until it reached the bottom. This was not a problem for Registax to handle. With the moon, you fill the entire frame so only half of the craters are still in the frame after a minute or more of capture so some craters move out of frame during the capture while others appear.

I tried to use this with my f/6 10" Dobsonian. I was unable to focus within the range of my focuser until I lowered my mirror cell in the tube. This gave a very high magnification image so only short capture times were possible before objects left the frame (no tracking). The images using the 4"SCT were better so I converted my Dob back to a visual telescope and stick to the SCT.

Finding objects is a bit challenging due to the narrow field of view when using this imager. I recommend centering the object using a high powered eyepiece and using/making a parafocal ring to make the focus close between the eyepiece and imager.

The camera is easy to use and the cord is plenty long enough. The software is reasonably easy to use once you play with it a little. Registax works very well and the automatic processing is usually good enough. Keep in mind that if the image on the screen is horrible, you probably won't get much from Registax. You need to have clear skies and sharp focus.