Celestron AVX Ordered

[Droogie 2001]

Ok I have finally taken the plunge and ordered a Celestron AVX mount from FLO.

When it arrives I am intending to try and stick to some sort of viewing plan.

It will be my first EQ mount and although I have downloaded and read the manual a few times there are still some areas I am unfamiliar with.

So just wanted to run down my steps and check I am on the correct path…

1. Will unpack and test mount indoors to make sure all is ok and become familiar with what does what etc.
2. Next will set up mount for some basic observing. Be it lunar, planetary or DSO. Will look at a 2 star alignment routine?
3. Once I am happy with this I will then attempt a polar alignment. Will probably start this indoors with some test routines to again become familiar with the added complexity.
4. Finally when I am ready it’s time to Polar Alignment will the ASPA routine outside using 2 Alignment stars a up to 3 calibration stars, may have to repeat this a couple of times?

From my back garden I can see Polaris easily. The view is a North to South view but I am not sure which star/s I can select for ASPA? I know there is a video on You Tube about ASPA so will have a watch of this again.
My main question is it sensible to get an illuminated reticule eye piece or just use a high power view when Polar aligning, if so what power? This would be in preparation for Astrophotography.
(I do have a spot a short way from my house (trolley distance) which gives me a nice 360 view but it’s not always an option.)
I believe a reticule will make it more accurate but does anyone have any recommendations. I have seen one on FLO for around £59 but was hoping maybe something a bit cheaper?

Any way hopefully exciting times are ahead.
I know there are a few others who have gone down the AVX route recently so hopefully we can help each other out.

Just need clear skies and for them to get darker sooner!

 

[Grotemobile]

http://www.firstlightoptics.com/specialist/skywatcher-125mm-illuminated-reticle-eyepiece.html

I presume you mean this.Would not be without

mine.The Celestron AVX mount seems to be a

very popular now.Have fun.

Steve.

[Droogie 2001]

Thanks, yes that's the one. Ok its £10 less than I thought which is not too bad.

Does seem to built for alignment routines and as I wont be guiding yet then I guess its a sensible step to maximising exposure times.
 

[Grotemobile]

I use it for aligning the finder scope, with the

eyepiece.That way, when you look through

the finderscope, you will see the object in

the centre of the E P.Makes life a lot easier

Steve.

[Droogie 2001]

That's a smart idea, thanks.

[Adrian23]

You've made a great choice! I bought one of these mounts back in march as my 1st eq and I can't praise it enough.

Your proposed plan of action pretty much mirrors what I did so I think you'll be fine.

Like you, I came to the conclusion that an illuminated reticle would make the set up process a lot more accurate for centering the stars in the eye piece so I've just bought a celestron CrossAim from Rothervalley optics for around the £55 mark but typical, I've not had a clear sky since to test it ( I'm really chomping at the bit here!). I'll let you know how it performs as and when.

As for ASPA - although it's called "all star" polar alignment , you clearly can't use ALL stars as I found out. From what I remember from the tutorial on YouTube , an ideal star for this should be in the south roughly 45 degree elevation so this will change with each passing month. Best thing I think is to do a little homework before your session with eg stelarium to see what named star will roughly be in this position at the time you're outside. That way you will get the most out of ASPA (the handset gives you the choice of many ASPA stars, not all will be useful or visible depending on surrounding landscape etc).

Let us know how you get on.

Clear skies.

Adrian

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[PeterCPC]

As I said on another post, I have an AVX with C9.25 and I have mounted a RDF and illuminated reticule 9x50 finderscope. I find it a makes accurate alignment a lot easier.

Peter

[ollypenrice]

You don't need a reticle eyepiece, really. Just estimate the centre of the highest power EP you have. This is more than adequate for visual observing.

When you move to AP you will have a camera in the system so you can use a virtual crosshair on the PC screen/capture software to centre the star. This is way the most accurate method and doesn't involve camera-in, camera-out which is something we all want to avoid like the plague. (Even if using a DSLR I would very strongly recommend PC control. There are many reasons for this. Several capture programmes have the tools you need built in.)

In your list I suggest that you invert 2 and 3. A GEM needs to be polar aligned in order to function. Very high accuracy is not needed at first.

While you are indoors I'd suggest getting your head around the meridian flip. It isn't difficult. I don't know about you but my intelligence drops by half once I'm in the dark!

Olly

http://ollypenrice.smugmug.com/Other/Best-of-Les-Granges/22435624_WLMPTM#!i=2266922474&k=Sc3kgzc

[Earl]

you can get a slide in cross hair.......

well i had one once so know they exist, finding one on the other hand might not be easy at all

[Droogie 2001]

Thanks everyone there are some great ideas there.  I'll take a look at the meridian flip, I have heard of it but have no idea how to work with it. Hopefully once I get to grips with the basics it will make more sense.

Good idea about planning the star for ASPA so I will fire up Stelarium and have a run through.

Hopefully over the next few weeks I'll report back on how I get on...

Thanks all.

[Scorpius]

Congratulations Droogie 2001 on your purchase of the AVX mount!!! I plan to do the same in the near future but need to wait a week or two for the ole expense account to replenish since my last purchase of Astro equipment. However, I've been researching this mount on the web and haven't been able to find any negative comments that turned out to be justified. It's true there are some differences of opinion regarding its maximum weight capacity for various applications but the overwhelming consensus seems to be that it's a great value in a medium duty mount. It also sounds like once you're familiar with the alignment routine, it's relatively quick and easy to setup and can support a wide variety of equipment and accessories.

One of the most biggest debates I ran across was that it doesn't have what some would describe as "proper bearings" in the DEC axis but the vast majority seem to agree the type of bearings don't really matter as long as long as the performance is there which apparently is the case. There may also may be some clearance issues with some of the larger scopes but there appear to be some viable workarounds for those somewhat unusual cases.

Like you - I have the 8SE and Neximage 5 so I'm anxious to know what you think once you've had a chance to put it through its paces and post your impressions on SGL for the rest of us to review. Sounds like it's a very capable mount for the 8" SCT and should do all you need it to do for years to come. It also sounds like adding an autoguider makes it tough to beat in terms of tracking accuracy sufficient to capture long exposure photographs or extended video subs for really great photos all the way from solar system objects to DSO's. However as I'm sure you already know, you'll be looking at another big purchase once your ready to move up to DSO's as the Neximage 5 is pretty much limited to planetary and maybe some of the brightest DSO's like M42 with the focal reducer you already have. 

Great choice IMHO and good luck with your brand new mount!!!

Scorpius

[Droogie 2001]

Thanks Scorpius for your detailed response. I have read some of your previous posts and we clearly share similar views and questions . All along I was going to go down the HEQ 5 Pro route as even though I was aware of the AVX it seemed to be too new so to speak. This was reflected in that there was little in the way of other people's experience with the AVX mount. But over the last few months this seems to have changed what with largely positive experiences . The ASPA system does appeal as well but I may consider the optional polar scope in the future if I struggle with polar alignment accuracy. Also I may need an illuminated reticule but for the moment I am just going to wait for the mount to turn up and let the expenses account come back to health!

I'll keep the Neximage 5 for a while longer as I think I can squeeze more performance out of this especially with a more stable mount. My DSLR is a bit on the old side but I have seen other people's AP images with the camera which more than satisfy my aims. Later down the line hooking it up to a laptop will be a must and maybe a small refractor for faster imaging.

This AP bug is not cheap!

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[Adrian23]

You've hit the nail right on the head there Droogie!!! The expenses associated with AP seem to grow exponentially in proportion to the number of consecutive cloudy nights we have, as we all fill our slack nights hunting for that next "essential upgrade" then trying to justify it to our nearest and dearest ;-)

Glad we are all in this boat together though. Keep us posted as to how things progress ...

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[Droogie 2001]

Ok the mounts arrived and I will performing some test setups inside tonight (cloudy anyway so no choice)

Reading through the manual on both the two star align and the ASPA setup it states that you should perform a two star alignment and then add calibration stars. The manual also says that the calibration stars offered by the handset will be on the other side of the meridian.
Is this going to be an issue for me as can only see from North down to South i.e. 180 degrees though its slightly offset and maybe it’s more accurate to say Northwest / Southeast
If the mount wants to slew westwards it point straight through my house.
Is there any way around this? Can I over ride this and add calibration stars that are not on the other meridian? Clearly this is not ideal or else they would not suggest the exact opposite...

I would imagine my situation is not that uncommon in that I am in the back garden and cannot see half of the sky?

Thanks
 

[Scorpius]

Try pressing undo when it suggests the calibration star you don't want and it should let you choose a different star from the hand control database - not sure about the AVX but that works with the stock Alt/Az mount and the hand controls are the same as far as I know...

[Droogie 2001]

Ok here is how I got on, bearing in mind all of this was tested inside.

Firstly this is quite an impressive piece of kit, it makes my stock Alt AZ mount look like a toy!

Thankfully so far everything looks ok, no damage and everything appears to be moving and working as expected.
My 8SE fits straight into the Dove Tail (good news there Scorpius  ) though the mounting screw bolts do bite into the OTA dove tail side bar leaving some small marks. I guess once I know the balance location this will be less of a problem and you cant see them directly, the whole point on the bar is for it to be gripped tightly so a minor quip.

Went through some test alignments and eventually came across the issue I raised. When you select Two Star Align it asks for stars in the West, this will be an issue for me as I cannot see any of the West from my normal location. The solution is to press the Menu key which switches to the East, if you press it a third time it seems to allow choose any star. Now I am not saying this is a good or most desirable thing but at least I have the opportunity to look into this further. At my other preferred site this would not be an issue.

The ASPA system seems to be surprisingly straight forward but of course I have not done this out in the dark yet so need to prepare for some potential difficulties.

I need to find out the best method of repeating the Polar alignment for more accuracy if the display polar alignment details show a degree of alignment error. I guess I can switch off the mount and repeat a second time but it would be nice to find a more cleaner way to achieve this. I think some of the other threads have details on this so I will have a revisit through these.

Tomorrow looks like a clear night so will try all of this again outside...

[Scorpius]

Ok here is how I got on, bearing in mind all of this was tested inside.

 

Firstly this is quite an impressive piece of kit, it makes my stock Alt AZ mount look like a toy!

 

Thankfully so far everything looks ok, no damage and everything appears to be moving and working as expected.

My 8SE fits straight into the Dove Tail (good news there Scorpius  ) though the mounting screw bolts do bite into the OTA dove tail side bar leaving some small marks. I guess once I know the balance location this will be less of a problem and you cant see them directly, the whole point on the bar is for it to be gripped tightly so a minor quip.

 

Went through some test alignments and eventually came across the issue I raised. When you select Two Star Align it asks for stars in the West, this will be an issue for me as I cannot see any of the West from my normal location. The solution is to press the Menu key which switches to the East, if you press it a third time it seems to allow choose any star. Now I am not saying this is a good or most desirable thing but at least I have the opportunity to look into this further. At my other preferred site this would not be an issue.

The ASPA system seems to be surprisingly straight forward but of course I have not done this out in the dark yet so need to prepare for some potential difficulties.

 

I need to find out the best method of repeating the Polar alignment for more accuracy if the display polar alignment details show a degree of alignment error. I guess I can switch off the mount and repeat a second time but it would be nice to find a more cleaner way to achieve this. I think some of the other threads have details on this so I will have a revisit through these.

 

Tomorrow looks like a clear night so will try all of this again outside...

Sounds like it's straightforward which is one thing that appeals to me about this mount - combined with the fact it should handle the 8" OTA for both visual and imaging with no problem. Paid my local gun shop a visit today and ended up selling off a rifle to get some extra cash to help buy this mount. I rarely shot that gun anyway and having a quality EQ mount under my telescope turned out to be more important than a rifle just sitting in the gun safe doing nothing at all. Guess that just proves I'm officially hooked on this hobby and will be ordering my AVX later this week.

Found some good videos where the guy shows how to set up and balance the AVX and also goes into imaging and processing in the second half. I'll PM you the link so you can check it out. Looking forward to hearing how it goes once you setup outside and will stay tuned for your next post...

Scorpius

[Adrian23]

I had a go at the ASPA routine for only the second time last night and found it really straight forward. I was trying out my illuminated reticle too which really seemed to help the 2 star and polar alignments beyond what I am used to. I did a bit of homework before I went out so that I knew what star I was going to use in ASPA Rasalhague seemed in a very good position - almost due south and at a decent elevation. After a little bit of alt/az adjustment as per the manual I was all set although I couldn't quite get my head around "unsyncing" previous stars as mentioned in the manual so I just powered down and then quickly did a new 2 star alignment plus 1 calibration star again. There must be an easier way than this though. Can anyone talk me through it???

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[Droogie 2001]

I tried the unsync option and found that confused matters as per a previous thread. I was advised to just power mount off after a ASPA and repeat the alignment and calibration 3-4 times so it sounds like you are in the correct path for the moment.

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[Adrian23]

Looks like that's the path we must tread then :-)

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[Droogie 2001]

I can see the reason why the manual suggests this as physically moving the Alt & Azi may cause a new misalignment so it wants you to basically perform a new alignment and calibration, it evens says perform this a number of times.  So effectively this pretty much has the same effect as powering off and on the mount.

I guess being new to the menus and having to remember which alignment stars and calibration stars you used previously certainly caused me some confusion. 

Still I have only tried the mount once so far and I will give "Ye olde" power off and on trick on my next attempt to see how things go. Oh and getting myself an illuminated reticule...

[Scorpius]

Have just ordered the Advanced VX mount and also an extra counterweight, polar scope, and the 5 amp A/C adapter to power it from a standard 100V receptacle. I'm very excited to be receiving this mount and look forward to comparing notes with the other 8SE/AVX owners posting to this thread...

[cray2mpx]

I got my AVX last week and after some initial issues with the GoTo accuracy it works beautifully since I reduced the GoTo slow rate down to 2 degrees per second (also much more quiet that way).

I have attached a picture with the shiny ADM PARTS attached. The ADM saddle is a real treat ...

cs,

Cray