When I found out that Celestron was bringing a new line of astronomy cameras to market, I was extremely curious. The Skyris range had been manufactured with the needs of the astro-photographer in mind. I had read that the Skyris 618 was very suited to capturing images of planets. Thanks to the cameras' 120 fps, it is possible to capture during the few short moment of good seeing. The Skyris 445 can capture fine details thanks to its small pixel size, while the large sensor of the Skyris 445 is perfect for full frame images of the sun and moon.

I was lucky to be able to test these three models for one week. The results were awesome! Installing the end-user and driver software went completely without hitch. After connecting the camera to the USB 3.0 interface of my laptop, the moon was my first subject. The Skyris 445C delivered extremely sharp images in which details of the moons' surface could be clearly seen. I also tested the camera in H-alpha light by capturing images of the sun's chromosphere. The results were the best that I have been able to obtain. Finally, in the early morning, I captured detail-rich images of Jupiter using the Skyris 618C. Only the changing weather prevented me from continuing and gave me some valuable sleep back.

Stefan Hahne