Celestron Piggyback Mount NexStar 5/6/8

The Celestron Piggyback Bracket fits their 5-8″ diameter NexStar SE telescopes and is a popular and easy way to get started in astrophotography.

Stunning, remarkably detailed wide field photos can be taken by attaching your SLR camera atop the NexStar telescope, guiding the camera through the motion of the telescope itself.  But you can, in fact, use any camera with a 1/4″-20 socket; it certainly helps to have a “bulb” setting for the shutter and manual control over the aperture, though.

For shorter exposures of 5-7 minutes, it is acceptable to use the NexStar SE in its normal altazimuth mode.  For longer exposures beyond 7 minutes, such as any wide field pictures with a nebula or other deep space objects in the image, you’ll need to add Celestron’s #93655 Wedge to put the NexStar SE in an equatorial mode so that there are no star trails or drifting of the elements in the image.

It certainly helps to have a fast aperture lens for the camera, such as the f/1.2 50mm, 55mm and 85mm lenses available to fit various manufacturer’s systems, as this helps drastically shorten the exposure times.

The slotted mounting holes in the base of this piggyback bracket allow it to be installed in predrilled threaded holes on the NexStar SE scopes, and the bracket’s unique design allows you to fit your Star Pointer finderscope on top of the piggyback so that you can accurately navigate your telescope and conduct astrophotography simultaneously.