Three weeks ago, I bought my very first scope, a Celestron NexStar 6SE.

Out of the box the scope was very easy to set up, at least physically. But what I did have difficulties with was getting the alignment process to work.. after alignment, everything I slewed to using the goto database was always quite far out of the centre, almost at the edge of my field of view (and sometimes outside completely, even on the lower mag eyepiece). And even after manually centring, the scope would immediately start to track the object out of view, so that after only a view minutes using a higher mag eyepiece, it would be out of range again completely.

Hindered by some cloudy nights, late getting dark vs early rise for work, I've only managed to get outside maybe four/five times in the past few weeks, but each time concentrating on getting the alignment process working. It was kind of frustrating in a 'desperate to start exploring the skies' kind of way, but I knew I had to get this bit right before really jumping in. And boy am I glad I did.

Last night, finally, clear skies, no work next day, and a determination to stay up until I got it working. And, woo hoo and hoorah, I did manage to do that !!

So this blog post is really about documenting everything I did so that, hopefully, future new NextStar 6SE owners will find this information useful and help alleviate some of that initial pain and get to the fun stuff quicker.

To start with though, my biggest piece of advice right now is, have patience, take your time to get it right, for the rewards are oh so definitely worth it :D

So, below are all things I do differentially now compared to my first few unsuccessful alignment attempts. At this point, having tried so many different things, I confess I’m not at all sure which ones made the biggest difference, and possibly some made no difference at all, but I’ll list them all anyway, as I'm sure they won't hurt.

• Accurate longitude/latitude positioning – I use my Sat Nav, which gives very similar values to Google Maps (and seems much more accurate than on my iPhone).
  
• Making sure the tripod is level, and using my own Stanley spirit level, not the supplied tiny bubble one.
  
• Properly balancing the telescope on the fork arm (a nod here to a guy called Marc and his NexStar 6Se blog, where I got the instructions on how to do this.. linky: Nexstar 6 SE Astronomy for dummies: balancing the optical tube - excellent blog Marc, thanks!).
  
• Alignment with higher mag eyepiece (I used 9mm). Started with a low mag piece (25mm) to get it roughly centred, then swapped to a higher piece for final alignment.
  
• Final alignment of stars using the same direction as the final goto movement (for me that was down then to the right).
  
• Aligned with the star slightly out of focus. Making the star appear “larger” definitely helped getting it centred.
  
• Using the two-star align (I used Arcturus and Vega) rather than the three-star SkyAlign.
  
• Not using a planet as one of the alignment stars.
  
• Using the re-alignment feature (on the same stars) to more accurately align both stars after initial alignment if it needed it.
  
• Having the handset in my hand to do the alignment, not still clipped on the mount. Oops! Definitely a bit of a schoolgirl error on this one - I wasn't considering the slight jolt to the tripod I was getting from pressing the align button each time!
  
• Using the Precise Goto for DSOs, rather than relying on the standard goto method.
  

A couple of other things also helped that weren’t strictly to do with the alignment process itself:

• A better knowledge of the night sky... it’s only three weeks since I bought my scope, and although I hardly know every star or DSO now, or even every constellation, before I bought my scope I could have pointed out Orion’s Belt and maybe Vega, and that’s about it. Now I can identify a handful of constellations with the naked eye, a few visible bright stars, I know where Saturn is, and I know what DSO stands for! And every night I’m out that knowledge is growing.
  
• A better knowledge of how to use my telescope generally. How to work the handset and menus, how to adjust backlash settings (and what a backlash setting is!), how to perform a re-alignment, how to perform a precise goto, what eyepieces are best for what type of viewing. Again that knowledge is still growing but I do now feel comfortable using my scope and a lot of the features it has to offer.
  
• LOTS of research, both on the internet generally and reading through posts on forums.. and I have to say (with no bias here!) that the majority of the good advice/tips I picked up came either from responses to my original thread about this problem (linky..), or from older threads from people with similar problems. So a huge thanks to my fellow forum people
  

I will be completely honest here and say that I’m still not getting the goto object smack bang in the centre of the eyepiece (and I am wondering if my expectation is set a little high to be wanting that, I’m still not sure...). However, the object is now a LOT closer to the centre and definitely recognisable. I’m sure my centring technique is going to improve still further as I gain even more experience. And, most importantly, when I do a final adjustment to completely centre an object after a goto, the tracking is accurately keeping the object centred.

And lastly, a very honourable mention to Precise Goto ! Discovering and using this feature, particularly for finding DSOs, is where everything literally just fell into place. I choose the object I wanted to goto (last night it was M13), the NexStar selects a bright star in the vicinity and slews to that object after I confirmed the star selection. I then had to give the star a final centre alignment, and when I pressed enter again, the scope slewed to the DSO, and lo and behold, the object was right in the centre of my view! Awesome!

So there you go, took a while, a lot of patience, a lot of research and a lot of help, but I got there in the end, and boy was it all worth it ! I had an amazing night with my scope last night saw some amazing sights, so much so that late on a Sunday afternoon and I’m still buzzing on a high like you wouldn't believe.

I am officially completely hooked !

:D:D:D:headbang::D:D:D

PS, for completeness, here's a link to my original thread, in case anyone wants to read first hand all the useful advice I received:

http://stargazerslounge.com/beginners-help-advice/146970-celestron-nexstar-6se-aligned-but-not-aligned.html