Celestron NexImage Solar System Imager
by Celestron
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List Price: Category: Digital Camera See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Celestron NexImage Solar System Imager
Customer Review: windows 7 os
Summary: 4 Stars
neximage doesn,t work with windows 7 os. when i pluged in the camara to the usb port windows wouldn,t recognize it so i could download the drivers. i contacted celestron they agreed told me to keep checking their website.Customer Review: It's an alright way to get into Astrography.
Summary: 3 Stars
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.
Customer Review: It would be great if the nose was actually 1.25"
Summary: 3 Stars
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.
Customer Review: Fine for moon viewing but it struggles for other viewing
Summary: 3 Stars
I used the NexImager with my Celestron 130 SLT. It was very good for moon viewing but it struggled a bit with the planets. For example, I found that viewing Saturn through a normal eyepiece produced a better and sharper image than using the NexImage. Also the CCD resolution of 640x480 is low in this day when megapixel CCD's are commonplace even in low price cameras. My unit also produced a fair amount of noise when viewing a dark sky.
But it is fun to play with and given it's low price, it is worth having.
A more expensive and useful add-on would be to make it wireless to avoid the cable that runs from the telescope to your PC.
As a side note, I'm using the NexImage with a Macintosh Macbook laptop. Though the software is written for a PC, I am using it fine via VMWare Fusion hosting a Windows XP OS.
Customer Review: Vista drviers and Neximage magnification
Summary: 3 Stars
This does not ship with drivers for Windows Vista, and Celestron are not planning on releasing any. However if you login to Yahoo user groups and search for the Neximage group, there is a folder in the files section called 'Neximage vista' which provides drivers for Windows Vista which worked great for me.
Also the magnification that you get from the Neximage is the same as what you would get from using a 5mm eyepiece on your telescope, so the length of your telescope divided by 5.