Shimrod

Did the handset LCD display illuminate but there was no response from the buttons, or was the handset dead completely?

I've just bought this - although I've always associated DK with children's books, this one is an interesting read for adults as well. I've had a quick flick through and it goes through a history of astronomy, key figures and discoveries from 600BC as well as discussing astro-physics concepts and theories about the universe. Needs to be read on a tablet or other large device - it has a lot of diagrams that won't look great or be easily readable on a standard 6" kindle. Astronomy Big Ideas Simply Explained

I can't tell you the calculation you need to use, but I can say that your calculation is wrong! I have the Celestron Powertank Pro which is 158wh, and that runs the AVX, starsense, focus motor, wi-fi and astro camera for 3-4 hours over a few nights. As you only want to run the AVX (the camera will be on its own battery presumably) then your power requirements will be a lot lower than 158wh. So if you can find something cheap with this capacity you will be fine. I don't know if you can get these in the US but this is the better capacity than the Celestron Powertank Pro but half the price: Beaudens powertank There's a discussion on powertanks in this thread, where the one above was recommended: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/410049-argh-power-banks/#comment-4382132

There is a compatible one on Amazon for $17 that seems to have a reasonable number of positive reviews - https://www.amazon.com/Compatible-Celestron-Telescope-Replacement-switching/dp/B00DILJCZM

On the Celestron website it recommends the 5a power supply if imaging, but says for visual the 2 .5a supply is sufficient .

The Celestron 5amp power supply is £39 - approx $47 before shipping costs at Picstop but they don't ship to the USA - try looking at a few UK or European websites that ship internationally. Might not come with a US plug though.

I bought my AVX in 2019 and it had the upgraded saddle - the article is from 2019 but I think the mount updates were a couple of years earlier - you won't have to worry about getting the older model. I don't know what the range of the skyportal is as I've never tested it - I have my laptop around 10 ft away from the telescope and use an xbox controller (with CPWI) to control the mount when doing visual. This saves me tripping over cables (which I've done in the past!). I have not seen anything mentioned about voiding the warranty in the UK if you don't use a Celestron power supply - I used to use a no name powertank with a lead acid battery but bought the Celestron Powertank Pro as it was much smaller and lighter. There are plenty of people powering their Celestron mounts with something other than Celestron power supply. The key thing if using a mains supply is to make sure the positive/negative pinout is correct for the mount.

There's a review of the AVX here which mentions some of the improvements including motors and base castings: https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/reviews/telescopes/celestron-advanced-vx-9-25-inch-schmidt-cassegrain-telescope-review. The saddle was also changed to a dual vixen/CG saddle. The USB cable is mini-usb at the handset end - I can't remember if one came with the mount. I use the skyportal dongle for wi-fi on mine to reduce the number of cables. I am not sure what you mean by the power connector type - it seems pretty standard and is a screw-in design to avoid sudden power loss if it falls out. Unless you are concerned about tripping over the cable and pulling the mount over. I power my mount with a celestron powertank pro but any reliable 12v supply will do. When I bought mine the power cable came with a cigar lighter socket at the other end.

It works fine for me, I use mine with an 80ed for imaging and an Edge 8" for visual. I think the issue with the AVX came from some of the early mounts, and there was a revision of the mount several years ago. However its early reputation has stuck throughout its life. Interestingly the price gap between the AVX and HEQ-5 here is a lot smaller - the HEQ5 does have the advantage of having the rowan belt upgrade which can be added at a later point to improve tracking (and reduce mount noise).

You can run the focuser from a tablet or PC - I use both on occasion with my Celestron mount and never use a handset. I use it with an 8" Edge HD and I find I can focus better as there is no wobble on the scope as you are operating the focus remotely. edit: It seems to be out of stock in the UK but it can be bought from Amazon US (via the Amazon UK website) for delivery on November 1st. Do read the additional terms and conditions though as it may be a hassle if you need to return it.

I use an Edge 8" on my AVX - with ASI533 camera, and for visual with a Starsense & finderscope attached along with a variety of eyepieces. It works fine although I use two Celestron counterweights as one is not enough to balance the scope. The C8 is a little lighter than the Edge, but I don't know if it would make a huge difference from a counterweight perspective - someone else may be able to comment.

I think you need to compare like with like - this is more than just an enhanced Starsense unit. As well as providing the same functions as Starsense, it is also an autoguider for astrophotography. A cheap guide camera and guidescope is £200, an equivalent with an IMX290 sensor will be around £300, and you might expect to pay around £200 for a Polemaster or Ipolar for accurate polar alignment. When you add all this together, the price of the autoguider (while not cheap) is roughly the equivalent of buying the same components individually - the autoguider has the added advantage of not needing a laptop - pricewise it is equivalent to the Staraid Revolution which provided similar functions. The biggest downside I can see is that it only appears to work with Celestron mounts (and only a limited set), so like buying into the ZWO ecosystem, you have to be confident that you won't go to a non-Celestron mount at some point in the future.

One of the offers of the day on Kindle is Brian Cox & Jeff Forshaw: Black Holes The key to understanding the universe for 99p - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Holes-Key-Understanding-Universe-ebook/dp/B09W4DQ441/ref=lp_5400977031_1_8?sbo=QS21L9be7oZFAGyl4IXR%2Bw%3D%3D Meanwhile, over on humble bundle (until 19th October) you can get Redshift 8 & 9 premium PC, along with Redshift Sky Pro for Android for £13.85 Humble Bundle - Night Sky Navigator's bundle I can't find much discussion on Redshift as planetarium and telescope control software, and I'm a bit puzzled as to why the bundle includes V8 & V9 of what seems to be the same package (despite the slightly different names). Although the software is available for Mac & IOS, this offer seems to be Windows and Android only. At less than £14 and with some of the money going to charity, it might be worth a go for someone - Redshift 9 is currently on sale on Amazon at over £100. (for anyone worried about the humblebundle website, I've used it on and off for several years, and it is owned by the Ziff Davis group - so not some dodgy operation!).

There was a thread about vixen here. The summary was a chance in distribution made it difficult for UK retailers to offer the mounts at a competitive price. https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/404515-dear-flo-what-happened-to-the-vixen-products/#comment-4335305

You can mount a second finder shoe on the telescope - I have a finderscope in one, and Starsense in the other on mine. Celestron sell a dovetail (https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dovetails-saddles-clamps/celestron-cge-dovetail-bars.html) that let's you piggyback other equipment on top of the scope. I bought mine as part of a Celestron 60mm guidescope package that they don't offer any more. I've never used it though as the 60mm scope unbalanced the OTA on my AVX too much. For small accessories like my dew controller (which I also use to distribute power) I use velcro to attach to the the OTA or the mount.

Still no publicity at Martin Mere, but I've noticed it overlaps with the late opening to see the (thousands) of geese coming in to roost at Martin Mere. Expect the car park to be busy as these are popular events, and it is free to enter the nature trail (not the whole centre) after 5pm. If you're not a member, admission to Martin Mere is £15 per visit. https://www.wwt.org.uk/wetland-centres/martin-mere/whats-on/late-opening-goose-spectacular Edit: Here's the event listed on Gostargazing with an estimate of the sky quality and the phase of the moon: https://gostargazing.co.uk/events/stargazing-at-martin-mere-with-liverpool-astronomical-society/

I am very close to Martin Mere and go most weekends. I didn't know about it - it's not advertised on their website and I've seen no publicity within the centre. The site is in a good location for dark skies, but is surrounded by tall trees which impact the accessible sky.

I have a Starsense on an AVX mount - you can remove and remount without doing the calibration each time - it mentions this in the manual. You only need to recalibrate if you move to another scope, although the calibration does not take a huge amount of time anyway. There is someone selling a Starsense unit in the classifieds (look for the CPC advert). You could probably try that one and if you don't get along with it you could sell it on for around the same price. As @globular said, I start the alignment with Starsense and carry on fetching my eyepieces etc while the alignment takes place. I have to set up/tear down each time I want to observe, so anything I can do to reduce set up time is worthwhile for me.

@James B I use CPWI to control the telescope - this effectively replaces the handset so date and time are taken from the laptop. I don't use a handset at all with the AVX (I connect via the Sky Portal wi-fi). However it works the same way if you connect via handset. You can also use CPWI as the telescope connection/control protocol - so if you have a preferred astronomy package (such as starry night or stellarium) you can use that via the CPWI control in the same way. I don't own a Sky Sync, but I have read it can be sensitive to which aux port it goes in when used with the Starsense camera. I've had a quick look through but can't find the relevant posts - it may be worth searching on here for starsense and GPS

That's just the way it works - you can turn on the RTC option which will use the internal clock instead, but it can drift by a few seconds. I control my AVX via laptop or tablet (depending on what I am doing) and the mount will take the date/time from that instead - effectively providing the same function as the sky sync. I use the Skyportal wi-fi module, but you can try controling using a laptop and a cable via the handset.

I use the Glendale app as well, but also have spaceweatherlive app (different from the Spaceweather.com website) on my phone. The latter is useful for alerts, gives an estimate of where the auroral band is and summarises the current state in a quick and easy to view dashboard.

I've not had any issues doing upgrades with CFM (similar set up - starsense, AVX) although I don't think I've checked for any updates since last year. I can only suggest trying to update one device at a time - if nothing else, it may help narrow down which one is causing the issue. Have you got the Starsense camera connected up correctly for the update - it requires a separate connection to the computer and mount - there's a diagram showing the connection set up in the CFM zip file. I'm not aware of any updates to the starsense camera for a number of years, so you could just take that out of the equation completely.

The link works for me from a UK IP address - maybe it was just a temporary glitch.

It's way outside my price range, but I do like to see an increasing range of strain wave mounts. I'd be cautious about the computer in the mount - I know all goto mounts have electronics in them, but how easy is it going to be to get a replacement board/module in the event of failure? I just use a laptop and wi-fi/cable currently and I like anything that means I have less setup to do, but it feels like the external box approach (like the Asiair) gives more scope for replacement in the event of issues. At least with iOptron you are not tied in to a single manufacturer ecosystem.

That's a very neat solution - can you share where you got the case from? I keep my filters in their individual holders, but it can be difficult to see which filter is which as the cases all look the same.