Celestron next star

[Harley (Gilbert)]

Hi All
Can anyone tell me if a Celestron SE Next Star 6 are any good for Astrophotography and can it track a star or planet .I have spoken to two pepole one say it will track and the other says it won"t . ???

[supernova1965 (Warren)]

Hi Harley,

Firstly welcome to IIS good to have you here

Yes the Nexstar 6 will track and goto a planet or any of tens of thousands of objects in the sky and it can do short exposures or you can do video's and create images from them. If it comes with a built in wedge you can do longer exposures when it is EQ aligned. I have just gotten a Nexstar 5se mount for my 5" inch Mak Cas scope and when I get the dovetail from the US soon I will be doing some astrophotography as well. I hope you enjoy the hobby and you will get lots of useful info from the great people here.

[traveller (Bo)]

Hi Gilbert and welcome,
The Nexstar has a good goto and great for visual observations. However, for photography work it is limited to webcam planetary work or short exposure DSLR work (20-30 secs max).
The single arm is AZ and the mount has weight (payload) limitations. I would suggest that you start off with some video stacking work of planets (there is one camera for sale in the trade section). Once you got the basics os exposure, gain etc, then consider upgrade to a HEQ5 for your 6" or an EQ6 which will allow you to get an 8" SCT plus guiders etc, but be warned, AP is frustrating and expensive.
Cheers. Bo

[Allan_L (Allan)]

To put it simply.
Yes it tracks.
But in Alt Az mode.
Generally, astrophotography long exposures are tracked in Equatorial mode.

The difference means that in Alt Az mode you will get some field rotation.
Short exposures OK as said before.

You can add a wedge to convert the mount into Equatorial.
But this introduces new problems of stability of a single arm mount.

Hope this helps

[Harley (Gilbert)]

Thanks everyone for your help