Celestron Neximage

Hi,

Maybe someone will go AHhhh... you did this wrong! I bought a Neximage yesterday, so last night when I got home, decided to give it a try: Using Celestron C6N + Neximage. I did get detail on the moon, but couldn't get the full moon for example in any one shot or capture. I also tried a x2 Barrow, but it went completely fuzzy.

I also tried to get Saturn, but all I could see was a white blob.

The images from the moon were fine, with good detail but I would need to put 10 of them togther to have a full pic of the moon.

Would anybody know what Im doing wrong.

Thanks,
Gary

Hi gary! congrats on the Purchase! I know i had difficulty with focussing on my 4.5" newt when coupled with my canon 300d. I couuldnt focus on ANYTHING! I think you may need a Coma corrector? the other lads will verify! My problem was just the focusser would hit the barrel and it wasnt focussed yet!

If you have a look here,it shows what the coma corrector does! depending on your focal ratio!

www.alpineastro.com/optical_accessories/optical_accessories.htm

Hope this helps,
Matthew

Gary - without knowing the full details, it sounds like (as regards Saturn) that you may need to adjust the levels in the Neximage software or reduce the exposure time.

If Saturn looks like a white blob, its either overexposed or your levels are incorrect.

As regards getting the full moon in once shot, that's pretty unlikely with an imager with such a small chip. Using a Barlow will only make the field of view even smaller.

With small chips, mosaics are usually the only way to image large extended objects.

If you moon pics turned out well (ie you could see craters etc) then the imager is certainly working. Now you have to start tweaking the software to get the planets. Welcome to the learning curve!

Dave

Hi Gary,

Congrats, it's a great planetary camera. Most of my own solar system images were made using one & it's basically the same as the Toucam Pro 2.

No way you'll be able to fit the moon in one shot as the pixel size is 5.6 microns. In fact I can't do so even on my 90mm. Did you get the .5x reducer with it?

For Saturn it sounds like you have the gain, gamma or shutter speed set too high. With a 6 inch Newt I would typically use about 5 or 10 frames per second, gamma at about 10-20% and a gain of maybe 25-50%. With that you should be able to capture some lovely images of Saturn with your Newt, but it will take a bit of experimenting to find what suits your scope.

By the way, I think the NexImage installs with Autoexposure on. You need to uncheck this box to get any decent images.

Some shots with the NexImage here www.thelunarscape.com/Joomla/content/view/27/40/ - mainly Saturn

Lunar here www.thelunarscape.com/Joomla/content/view/28/39/

& the Sun
www.thelunarscape.com/Joomla/content/view/26/38/

As you can see it works nicely with solar system objects.

Hope this helps.

Trev

Hi,

Thanks for the info! I can see from the pics that what I am getting is correct. Ill try tonight if I can to see if I can change the settings as well to get some shots of saturn.

Trev no I didnt get a .5x reducer with it! Ill have a look on the net here for some more info on that. Thanks Dave and Mathew for the info as well.

At least now I know Im not way off. I actually ended up putting the setting on the software to Auto just looking at the moon, as changing the settings manually didnt seem to get me anywhere at all. But like you said.... there's a learning curve!

Cheers,
Gary