StarDuke82

I made a post about this the other day but I will put the attachment from it here in hopes that it will will be helpful in your observations in the coming months with lots more to expect from Venus on into August.ust

I just bought a new Celestron Nexstar Evolution 8 and have been using it for a few nights and its worked perfectly but tonight while using it it stopped slewing, I could still use Go-to and align and the Scope would move but when I would use the arrow buttons on my tablet I got no response, I checked to make sure it wasn’t locked and it wasn’t so I have no idea what could be wrong, since Go- to and align still work I don’t think it’s a issues with the gears or motors and because those commands were sent from my tablet I don’t think its the wifi either I am at a loss. Any ideas or help from anyone more knowledgeable would be greatly appreciated.

Before when I had my newtonian I only had a passing interest in the moon and other planets as details seemed a bit soft and not as good as I expected, but I just bought a SCT and have a renewed interest in observing the Moon and the Planets as everything is so much more sharp and defined. I do need a Moon filter though as it’s almost like having a flashlight shining in your face which is why I always save lunar observation for the end of my night.

As I am sure everyone knows Venus is very prominent in the evening sky at the moment and has risen well above the horizon and over the course of April it will reach its highest point above the horizon on may 1st and then start its descent back towards the horizon line and wane into a crescent and gradually grow larger as its orbit brings it closer towards the earth (relatively speaking) hanging low on the horizon in early August.

Thank You both I read up on Collimation and made myself a Collimation Cap and did some adjustments today by aiming my scope at a sunny window and aligning the primary mirror point in the center of the the secondary as best as possible, and will have to wait until better weather this weekend to fine tune adjustments, may post an updated image of the results

Pretty sure my Scope is out of Collimation I first suspected when I never noticed any cloud banding observing Jupiter but I tried the old star test tonight using Venus and its actually bright enough to notice that the primary and secondary mirrors appear to be slightly off center, (see I know how to adjust the mirror with the spidervane but I’m not sure which screws are the collimation screws on my Celestron the long or the short one’s flush with the base. The attached photos are through my eyepiece editing the contrast and shadows on one to better show the concentric rings and the spider vane, am I out of collimation like I suspect.

Depends on what I’m observing but I usually Go-to

Been fiddling around with my telescope for a while and this was the first night I actually noticed the moons and I got so excited, I snapped this with my smartphone through my zoom eyepiece hoping when my actual celestron camera and higher magnification eyepiece kit arrives I can get some more detailed pictures, I don’t know if it’s my imagination but I can sort of see the faint cloud bands on a orange Jupiter but light pollution is pretty bad where I live 5-6 on 1-8 scale.

I have made sure the date and time are correct, and my location is also correct, however I did a manual alignment and calibration the other night on Sirius and it worked correctly after that slewing to whatever celestial object I chose accurately but when I tried to use it tonight it was inaccurate until I did a manual alignment so apparently I will have to do a manual 1 point alignment every time I use it which is a bit inconvenient but still quicker than using the 3 point alignment that I was using before for my computerized scope.

I recently bought a Starsense Autoalign Camera for my Celestron Astrofi telescope last week I successfully ran my first alignment and calibration but when I took it out tonight it continuously failed and I kept getting a message Error Failure to read plate despite it claiming to find over 100 stars. The mount was level, the lens cap was off and I had the scope plugged into a fully charged power tank and the sky conditions were the same as last week. It’s as if the camera has just malfunctioned, because it’s an astro-fi using the hand controller isn’t an option because when I plug it into the second aux port it fails to function, I’m at a loss at what to do. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.