My first Magazine Sky & Telescope - 01.2019 | Page 32

Innovative Gear
WIND-UP CAMERA TRACKER SMARTPHONE CAMERA ADAPTER
Omegon ♦ omegon.eu Celestron ♦ celestron.com
No aspect of astrophotography has been
revolutionized more by digital photography than
wide-i eld nightscapes that show star-i lled skies
over dramatic foregrounds with short exposures.
The best nightscape images often involve a small
camera tracker, and the new Omegon Mount
Mini Track LX2 is among the most compact and
least expensive we’ve seen. And its wind-up drive
mechanism certainly i ts within the simplicity of this
astrophotography niche. Watch for our Test Report
on the LX2 in the coming months. We’ve said it before — there’s no shortage of devices
made to hold a smartphone camera up to the eyepiece
of a telescope or binocular. But Celestron’s NexYZ 3-Axis
Universal Smartphone Adapter is the i rst we’ve seen
with the ability to precisely tweak the camera’s distance
from the eyepiece and thus allows capturing the optimum
i eld of view. It works with eyepieces, including those for
microscopes, from 35 to 60 mm in diameter.
U.S. price: $59.95
U.S. price: starting at $129
PHOTO-VISUAL
APO REFRACTOR
Stellarvue ♦ stellarvue.com
While this 80-mm f/6 apo refractor
features a three-element objective for
uncompromising visual performance,
it was designed from the get-go as
a wide-i eld astrograph. Among the
SV80-3SV’s features are a massive
3-inch, dual-speed focuser and an
optional dedicated i eld l attener
optimized for full-frame DSLR cameras.
And there’s a dedicated 0.74× focal
reducer/l attener in the works that
yields a 355-mm focal length at f/4.5.
U.S. price: $1,995
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JA N UA RY 2 019 • SK Y & TELESCOPE