Neximage Worth It?

[Crusader]

I'm considering buying a Celestron Neximage to be able to play around with planetary imaging with my Dob. I'm wondering if anyone has experience with using the Neximage in Vista and whether it would be worth getting for use in the Dob.

Are there any issues with Vista?

How sensitive is the imager, would you be able to do some imaging of star clusters/double stars as well, or is it only limited to planets?

I might () be buying a SW Auto-tracking Dob or Celestron 8SE in the near (or not so near) future so I'm assuming that it would work nicely with them as well.

[renormalised (Carl)]

From reading reviews about the camera it's a case of YMMV. If I were you, I'd get a DMK21 or DBK21. Better cameras overall.

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by Crusader

I'm considering buying a Celestron Neximage to be able to play around with planetary imaging with my Dob. I'm wondering if anyone has experience with using the Neximage in Vista and whether it would be worth getting for use in the Dob.

Are there any issues with Vista?

You would need the Vista drivers. Download them from Celestron.

Originally Posted by Crusader

How sensitive is the imager, would you be able to do some imaging of star clusters/double stars as well, or is it only limited to planets?

I might () be buying a SW Auto-tracking Dob or Celestron 8SE in the near (or not so near) future so I'm assuming that it would work nicely with them as well.

I have one and it is no-where near as sensitive as my Atik 16ic, but it was a quarter the price. It works fine on my C8 but I wouldn't use it for deep space imaging. I can use the it as a guide camera on my ST80 as long as there is something of about mag 6 or better in view.

The DMK is probably better long term value.

[Crusader]

The problem is that I'm in South Africa where it seems astro items can be even more expensive than in Aus. I will be able to get the Neximage for around R1000. The cheapest price on teh DMK21 I can find over here is R6000!

For playing around I can convince myself to pay R1000, but 6 times that price is a bit steep. Especially since that would be more expensive than my scope!

[renormalised (Carl)]

I was just looking at the exchange rate between the US and SA for a DBK sourced at OPTcorp (for $350), and it's R2730, which is a lot better than R6000 but still expensive...plus I don't know what your import duties and such are. Your government really needs to pull its finger out and get SA going again because that exchange rate is woeful!!!!.

[Crusader]

Originally Posted by renormalised

I was just looking at the exchange rate between the US and SA for a DBK sourced at OPTcorp (for $350), and it's R2730, which is a lot better than R6000 but still expensive...plus I don't know what your import duties and such are. Your government really needs to pull its finger out and get SA going again because that exchange rate is woeful!!!!.

Indeed. Shipping and Tax will most likely bring the price up to the R4000 mark. Not to mention all the hassles with customs paperwork etc.

[Crusader]

For better or worse I've placed my order for the Neximage. Hopefully I'll be happy with it. At the very least it works out cheaper than trying to modify a webcam myself and if I don't like it I'm sure I could sell it again.

[Harpspitfire]

i have a neximage now and used a ToUcam 840 in the past, i thought the neximage did a better job so i sold the ToUcam, the DFK41 is $$$ out of the question for me, so im thinking about the SPC900nc- whats weird is, all these cameras including the DFK use the SAME CCD chip! so i guess the real difference is how the camera's chip is intergrated with the operating software?- i dont know myself, so im still debating if this SPC900nc is really an upgrade or not over the neximage, BTW- the AMcap software totally sucks- even though it has virtually the same aquiring windows as the others- registax doesnt like the way it writes the avi file- use something else

[Crusader]

I've come across recommendations for wxAstroCapture hopefully that will work with the Neximage as well. Still waiting to receive my Neximage so couldn't test it yet.

[Harpspitfire]

thats much better, thats what i use now