Celestron Nexstar 4SE first light

[TrixieLoyalist]

I figured I do one of those posts to introduce myself.

So I just received a Celestron Nexstar 4SE from Amazon on Wednesday and had it up and running that day. Set up of the telescope was pretty easy with a Hungarian friend assisting but  the red dot finder had it's mounting tightened too much so it couldn't fit on the scope, I'd anticipated something like this and so bought my first screwdriver set with the scope which quickly sorted that problem out. I was kind of taken aback with just how small it is but it's sort of cute, it's like the little telescope that can. I don't have a power tank yet so I put in 8 AA batteries and I have another 72 to get through so should have a power tank by then.

When it turned dark I took it outside to the garden and had a "doh!" moment on using the handset as I didn't see a way to enter negative longitude a quick look at the manual (reading a manual? Blasphemy!) didn't say anything so I took to Google which made me look silly, all I had to do was enter longitude and then select East or West of the prime meridian so with sorted I entered the time and date off my phone to the nearest minute and it was all ready to go Sky Align. Here we come to "doh!" moment number two, lined it up on bright star very roughly and did enter and precise line up then I did 2 more random stars which I found just slewing around the telescope, of course alignment failed. Then I notice that what I thought was a button on the red dot finder was nothing and it was actually a circular knobby thingy on the side that turned it on, with the red dot finder on it was quick and easy to align the telescope and the handset reported alignment success after aligning it with Jupiter, Mars and some random bright star (now you should be seeing why I picked the near idiot proof Celestron GoTo).

Off to observing, I went for Jupiter first and it put Jupiter right in view of the 25mm eyepiece, I could see basically a big shiny disk and some bright lights around it, no worries for I also purchased a Celestron Omni 15mm eyepiece and 2x Barlow Lens, in the 15mm with the Barlow Jupiter was FANTASTIC! I could easily several bands of clouds although now I could see fewer of the moons, I also showed my friend over from Hungary Jupiter and he found it wonderful too. Next target was Mars, this time the goto didn't put Mars in view of the 25mm eyepiece so I had to do a bit of slow slewing and then it was in view, Mars was an orangy disk in the 25mm but with the 15mm and Barlow I believe I could notice some detail although this might of been my mind playing tricks. My friend left at this point but not before mentioning he now wants a telescope.

Final observing, next up as the last target before I went in was the moon, it was low over buildings and with trees in the way but I could see it clearly at some points, and it was a great view.

So next I'm going to look in to doing a more precise alignment so the scope goto works better and try looking at some double stars, tonight should be okay so I'll see what I can get.

TY if you read through all that.

[knobby]

Nice report and as you've found a very capable little scope .

[Astro Imp]

Great report, you'll have a load of fun with your new toy.

Keep us updated with your progress.

[Toymaster]

Enjoyed reading your report....

Let us know how you get on with the 4SE as I'm interested as a grab and go scope that is quick to align.

Thanks

Adrian

[ronin]

Don't worry too much about Mars at present, it has just been at it's closest point to us and because we are running faster then Mars it now appears to be going backwards. Simply not sure how well the rather simple software in the scope will handle this.

I rather suspect it does so badly, if at all.

It would better if you worked out a few stars to do the alignment with, in general using planets can give poor alignment accuracy. No rush, you will learn them eventually. The reason is they are in sort of fixed positions so the scope will have less processing to do. Aligning on a moving object just adds complexity and although the planets move slow they do move, and as said Mars is presently going the wrong way.

It will not take long to eat 72 batteries, and when you get a power tank do not use it until it is low on power and the scope slows or stops, as then the battery is low and probably damaged so you will need a new power tank. :eek:

[Albaba]

Great report!

[baggywrinkle]

Nice one.

Just a word of warning red the red dot finder. I have the 6SE and they seem to have a common problem. Sometimes they are hard to get enough adjustment on usung the two screws in order to line up with the OTA.

If that happens put a shim of card under the rear end of the RDF mount, one or two thin pieces should work. This then normally allows enough room for adjustment.

I often left the RDF opn accidentaly, so keep a suppy of 2032 batteries to hand.

[baggywrinkle]

'Scuse the type and banana fingers....6:00 hours in Shanghai...wet n stormy outside

[TrixieLoyalist]

2nd night out with the scope yesterday! I put in fresh new batteries which was a teeny bit troublesome as one of rows of batteries kept popping out of the battery compartment but I dealt with it fine by just quickly sealing up the compartment after gettings things locked down a bit. So I booted up the Nexstar and did the date and time etc, lined up some stars in the RDF which was not properly aligned with the telescope so I centered a bright star in the eyepiece then adjusted the RDF until it also was over the bright star, then I started Sky Align it failed once but worked on the second try however when I slewed it to Jupiter it was pointing in the completely wrong area of sky opposite Jupiter in fact! So I went and manually aimed at Jupiter which was again a great sight with it's moons, some nice detail in the 15mm Omni Plossl with the 2x Barlow. I left my friend observing Jupiter outside while I went in to do a google and read the manual on how to reset the telescope's location as it seemed to have saved but with some error might be due to batteries I'll investigate further when I get a power tank.

Having read how to redo the location data in the handset I did that again and found the coords were off by a bit, so with new input I then did Sky Align and it failed again(what I think happened here is that I chose stars two close to each other or something like that). So next I decided to redo location and select London as my location, tried to Sky Align again being more selective in the stars I picked and it worked!

First up I went back to Jupiter with the goto landing Jupiter in view of the 25mm eyepiece and observed that for a while letting my eyes get used to the dark to try and eke out a bit more detail which went nicely I feel, I could definitely make out a few bands and I could see the moons as bright dots. Next I observed Saturn with the goto again landing it in view of the 25mm eyepiece but a bit off center, I could clearly see a ring around Saturn especially with 15mm eyepiece. At this point I was giddy and excited like a little school girl and I decided to get my phone out to try and take a few pictures and a video, it took a bit of fiddling to get the phone aimed properly over the eyepiece but I took a few pictures and managed a 45 second video before I lost sight of Saturn on the phone, this of course left me tremendously excited. My friend then used his phone to take a few pictures of Saturn.

So we were both pretty hyped at this point and we decided to look at some things beyond the solar system. The first target as I saw it mentioned on SGL was M13, it was faint and so would of been easy to miss but having read a bit I knew I'd have to be on the lookout for a faint smudge, and boom there it was in the 25mm eyepiece. I decided to see if it would look any different through the 15mm but all I got was a slightly closer looking faint fuzzy, nontheless I was quite impressed that I was looking at something over 25,000 light years away!

Now we decided to go for something a little brighter so looked through double stars on the handset and picked Albireo, scope brought us right into position and using the 15mm I split it nicely, it might have been split in the 25mm too but I can't remember now. It was a pretty beautiful sight and it was the perfect object to end the session on I thought so we then packed up(which with a 4SE basically just means bring up tripod legs and carry inside) and went inside.

I think the 2nd night out with the Nexstar 4SE was even better than the first and I was a like a child filled with wonderment all over again.

[Mem]

Nice report, I had a Nexstar SE6 I found that batteries were useless when trying to align and even with a fresh set I always had alignment problems! As soon as I used a Power Tank never had alignment issues! Make sure you are on a flat surface and everything is level, I used to align with 3 stars from 3 different parts of the day I.e. East, South and west which seemed to give me excellent alignment, I have read quite a lot of articles from users of goto who have had issues with alignment I must admit once I stopped using batteries and adjusted settings (read the manual) I had 3 years of problem free alignment.

I knew nothing about the sky hence for a goto but once I got experienced I bought myself a 12" Dob and so.d the se6 , although at times I do miss my se6!

[Astro Imp]

Another great report Trixie, you seem to be getting to grips with your scope.

With Albireo you picked one of the best double stars in the whole sky.

Good luck and keep enjoying the views.

[LukeSkywatcher]

"I often left the RDF opn accidentaly, so keep a suppy of 2032 batteries to hand."

I have the 8se and not a RDF in sight or any batteries. I'm hardcore old school and the fun for me in observing is "the hunt". I plug that sucker into a power tank and just use the up,down,left,right directional keys to slew the scope to where i want. If i'm in a lazy mood i will just stick the RDF on and do a one star or solar system alignment.

I find this thought to be very limiting and the scope will refuse to find almost anything as the GPS has not been properly triangulated so as to narrow down where its pointing and pinpoint your/its location.

Either that, or i am doing something very wrong, because if i do a single star align on a big bright well known star and then tell the scope to find something that is in its database, it basically says to me "You're having a laugh,right?".

It will follow that star throughout the night and i can slew to other objects manually and it will follow them, but it just wont initially find other objects.

I'd say its me doing something very wrong because i did state that i basically fly solo with the scope and only use the GoTo function to move the scope up,down,left,right.

I'm happy to do this and the scope is happy with the less work load it has to do.