Celestron NexImage Burst Colour camera

By Steve Ringwood

CelestronBurstColorCamera_940x925The arms race in astro-imaging continues apace. For planetary imaging, greater resolution and speed are desirable ambitions, but getting these in a one-shot colour camera is not so easy. One-shot colour is a useful attribute for objects in the Solar System, particularly Jupiter — its rapid rotation waits for no one who has to change tri-colour filters between shots using a monochrome imager.

Celestron has therefore brought us the NexImage Burst Colour. It has a very respectable resolution of 1,280 × 960 pixels, with the facility of imaging at up to 120 frames per second. With the large dynamic breadth of its subjects in mind, the exposure range available is from one to a ten-thousandth of a second.

With the included software, the camera also has a very neat trick up its sleeve. It analyses each incoming frame and throws away those smeared by turbulence, aligning the best ones. This means that when you port the resulting file into your enhancement software, half the job is already done.

The USB powered NexImage Burst is mounted in a 1.25-inch barrel with c-thread compatibility.

Specifications

Sensor: 1/3-inch format Aptina AR0132AT CMOS
Camera resolution: 1.2MP (1280 x 960 pixels)
Sensor size: 4.8mm x 3.6mm
Pixel size: 0.00375mm square
Sensitivity: 5.48 V/lux-sec (@550nm)
USB cable: high-speed USB 2.0 cable
Back focus with nosepiece: 13.1mm
Back focus from threads: 10.6mm

Price: £229

For more information: www.celestron.uk.com