Planetary Imaging Cameras
Using a planetary imager is the most efficient and effective way of taking planetary and lunar images. A planetary imager is capable of taking many images or frames in fast succession. These frames can then be combined and enhanced using a process called stacking. Therefore using your planetary imager, you will need to capture your frames onto a laptop or PC and utilise some software for processing.

This image was taken by our (then) 13 year old daughter using a NexImage 5 Astro Webcam and a Celestron 8 inch SCT. She took about 45 seconds of video and then imported it into a software program called registax. That program aligned and stacked together all of the best frames from her video. She then used the wavelet functions to sharpen and de-noise the image finally resulting in what you see here.
She had a few fails to start off with, but with a little patience and a large amount of trial and error she proved that these results are very achievable with the most modest cameras in this section.
The Celestron Cameras come complete with all you need in the box. You will of course also need a suitable telescope, a windows based laptop and some clear skies. Since this was taken (6 years ago now) many new products and sensors have come onto the market from manufacturers such as ZWO and Altair with their GPCAM. The image capture software has also improved, for example a freely downloadable program called SharpCap takes advantage of the sensitivity of some of these newer cameras and allows longer exposures for entry level deep sky pictures, and has a feature called live stacking that can with the right combination of equipment build up live images of deep sky objects. SharpCap have also released a new polar align feature that can use your guides cope and camera for those who quite literally find polar scopes a pain in the neck! The Altair capture software can deal with dark frame noise reduction too.
Planetary imaging however is only part of the story, some of these cameras can also be used for guiding or in a digital finder set up, and as such are fast becoming an essential part of the astronomers toolkit.

This image was taken by our (then) 13 year old daughter using a NexImage 5 Astro Webcam and a Celestron 8 inch SCT. She took about 45 seconds of video and then imported it into a software program called registax. That program aligned and stacked together all of the best frames from her video. She then used the wavelet functions to sharpen and de-noise the image finally resulting in what you see here.
She had a few fails to start off with, but with a little patience and a large amount of trial and error she proved that these results are very achievable with the most modest cameras in this section.
The Celestron Cameras come complete with all you need in the box. You will of course also need a suitable telescope, a windows based laptop and some clear skies. Since this was taken (6 years ago now) many new products and sensors have come onto the market from manufacturers such as ZWO and Altair with their GPCAM. The image capture software has also improved, for example a freely downloadable program called SharpCap takes advantage of the sensitivity of some of these newer cameras and allows longer exposures for entry level deep sky pictures, and has a feature called live stacking that can with the right combination of equipment build up live images of deep sky objects. SharpCap have also released a new polar align feature that can use your guides cope and camera for those who quite literally find polar scopes a pain in the neck! The Altair capture software can deal with dark frame noise reduction too.
Planetary imaging however is only part of the story, some of these cameras can also be used for guiding or in a digital finder set up, and as such are fast becoming an essential part of the astronomers toolkit.
Showing 40 of 40 products
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Altair Hypercam 294C PRO TEC Cooled 11.6mp Colour CMOS Camera 4GB DDR3 RAM
£1,025.00£925.00Black Friday Offer -
Bresser Universal Smart phone Adapter
£35.00Universal adapter for mounting smartphones to your spotting scope, Telescope or microscopeOut of stock -
Bresser WiFi Camera 1.25"
£88.00The Bresser WIFI Camera 1.3MP 1.25" is a fully wireless camera system, designed to image the Moon, Sun (with appropriate filtration) and brighter planets.Out of stock -
Celestron NexImage 5 Solar System Imager (5MP)
£259.00£214.00Celestron NexImage 5 Solar System Imager (5MP) -
Celestron Skyris 132M Camera
£600.00£189.00Black Friday Offer -
Celestron Skyris 236M CCD Camera
£645.00£389.00MAC OS X COMPATIBLE!! -
Celestron Skyris 5-Position 1.25 Inch Filter Wheel
£150.00£29.90Black Friday Offer -
ZWO 60mm Finder and Guide Scope
£98.00Out of stock -
ZWO ASI 071MC-PRO USB 3.0 Cooled Colour Camera
£1,599.00£1,499.00Special Offer -
ZWO ASI120MC-S Colour 1/3" CMOS USB3.0 Camera with Autoguider Port
£191.00£149.00 -
ZWO ASI120MM MINI USB2.0 Monochrome Small Format CMOS Camera with Autoguider Port
£149.00Out of stock -
ZWO ASI120MM-S Monochrome CMOS USB3.0 Camera with Autoguider Port
£207.00£179.00Out of stock -
ZWO ASI128MC PRO COOLED FULL FRAME One Shot Colour Deep Sky Imaging Camera - 24MPixels
£3,147.00Special Offer -
ZWO ASI1600MM PRO COOLED Deep Sky Imaging Camera with EFWMini and 1.25" RGBL Filter Set BUNDLE
£1,497.00£1,489.00Out of stock -
ZWO ASI1600MM PRO COOLED Deep Sky Imaging Camera with EFWMini and 31mm RGBL Filter Set BUNDLE
£1,525.00£1,509.00Out of stock -
ZWO ASI1600MM PRO COOLED Monochrome 4/3" CMOS USB3.0 Deep Sky Imager Camera
£1,299.00Special Offer -
ZWO ASI1600MM PRO with EFWMini, 1.25" RGBL Filter Set & 1.25" H-alpha 7nm Filter BUNDLE
£1,618.00£1,599.00Out of stock -
ZWO ASI1600MM PRO with EFWMini, 31mm RGBL Filter Set & 31mm H-alpha 7nm Filter BUNDLE
£1,665.00£1,649.00Out of stock -
ZWO ASI1600MM-PRO with EFW 7, 36mm RGBL Filter Set & 36mm Ha, SII, OIII 7nm Filter Set BUNDLE
£2,040.00£2,019.00Out of stock -
ZWO ASI1600MM-PRO with EFW 8, 1.25" RGBL Filter Set & 1.25" Ha, SII, OIII 7nm Filter Set BUNDLE
£1,892.00£1,799.00Out of stock -
ZWO ASI1600MM-PRO with EFW 8, 31mm RGBL Filter Set & 31mm Ha, SII, OIII 7nm Filter Set BUNDLE
£1,963.00£1,899.00Out of stock -
ZWO ASI174MM MINI USB2.0 Monochrome Small Format CMOS Camera with Autoguider Port
£499.00Out of stock -
ZWO ASI174MM-COOL USB3.0 COOLED Mono CMOS Camera with Globar Shutter Technology and Autoguider Port
£934.00Out of stock -
ZWO ASI178MC USB3.0 Back-Illuminated Colour CMOS Camera with SONY STARVIS and Exmor R Technology and Autoguider Port
£349.00Special OfferOut of stock -
ZWO ASI178MM USB3.0 Back-Illuminated Mono CMOS Camera with SONY STARVIS and Exmor R Technology and Autoguider Port
£369.00Special OfferOut of stock -
ZWO ASI183MC Colour 4/3" CMOS USB3.0 Deep Sky Imager Camera
£570.00£549.00Special OfferOut of stock -
ZWO ASI183MC PRO COOLED Colour 4/3" CMOS USB3.0 Deep Sky Imager Camera
£855.00£799.00Special Offer -
ZWO ASI183MM Monochrome 4/3" CMOS USB3.0 Deep Sky Imager Camera
£699.00Special OfferOut of stock -
ZWO ASI183MM PRO COOLED Mono 4/3" CMOS USB3.0 Deep Sky Camera
£999.00Special OferOut of stock -
ZWO ASI224MC USB3.0 Colour CMOS Camera with SONY Exmor and NIR Technology and Autoguider Port
£273.00£249.00Out of stock -
ZWO ASI290MC USB3.0 Colour CMOS Camera with Autoguider Port
£317.00£299.00Special OfferOut of stock -
ZWO ASI290MM MINI USB2.0 Monochrome Small Format CMOS Camera with Autoguider Port
£299.00Out of stock -
ZWO ASI290MM USB3.0 Mono CMOS Camera with Autoguider Port
£369.00Special OfferOut of stock -
ZWO ASI294MC Colour 4/3" CMOS USB3.0 Deep Sky Imager Camera
£760.00£709.00Special OfferOut of stock -
ZWO ASI294MC Pro (color) USB3.0 Cooled Camera
£999.00Our most popular CMOS Deep Sky CameraOut of stock -
ZWO ASI385MC USB3.0 Colour CMOS Camera
£352.00£332.00Special OfferOut of stock -
ZWO ASiair Smart WIFI Accessory and ASI120Mini BUNDLE
£318.00Special Bundle Offer!Out of stock -
ZWO ASiair Smart WIFI Accessory for Portable Astro Photography with ZWO ASI Cameras
£179.00Smart WIFI Accessory for Portable Astro Photography with ZWO ASI CamerasOut of stock -
ZWO MiniScope 30mm f/4 Mini Guide Scope
£89.00Out of stock -
ZWO T2 Camera Tilting Unit
£39.90Out of stock