Neximage 5 and Icap
October 9, 2012
With the NexImage 5 #93711 camera plugged in, go to Devices in the iCap menu bar, then Properties in the dropdown submenu. This screen will appear:
If you cannot adjust the sliders, be sure the Auto is unchecked as is shown here for the Gain and Exposure controls.
Several features and toolbars in iCap can be seen but are not available for the NexImage 5. iCap is used for many other camera models. Different options are enabled for the different cameras. Gamma and sharpness are two controls that the program cannot send to NexImage 5, so they are disabled when NexImage 5 is the connected camera.
The NexImage 5’s frame rate is determined by the resolution, exposure length, subframe region of interest (ROI) size and the computer’s speed and USB connection. If allowed, it can achieve a frame rate of up to 30 fps.
For example, a typical PC running Windows 7 and iCap with the NexImage 5 #93711 camera at full 2592x1944 resolution might get a frame rate of 6 fps downloading the stream of 5MB images being output by the imager. For planetary imaging, a smaller ROI would be used and correspondingly higher rates would be possible. The same computer with a 200x200 pixel ROI can achieve 25 fps.
It is possible to use this camera at the Fastar focus of your OTA. You would need to find or make adapters for it, as Celestron does not have any such adapters. However, note that the NexImage is not a low-light level camera but a planetary imager with a small chip. So it is not the best camera match for the f/2 optical configuration available with Fastar. A much better choice is the Nightscape camera.
