Hello all, been a while, I am still very new to astronomy even though I had a telescope for a few years. I bought a celestron NexStar 4se some time ago. I bought it used on eBay, and the hand control really never worked correctly if at all. There were times when I would push a button, and nothing would happen, to the point of turning off the scope and turning it back on to make it start working again. I couldn’t scroll through menus for planet, stars or anything. I struggled through it for a while, but then frustration got the best of me, and I put the scope away, and lost interest. Well, a renewed spark of interest got me to break out the scope, only to find that I misplaced the power cord. I ended up buying a power tank, and last night was my first night back observing. Well of course the remote was acting up again, so I settled on watching the moon,which I enjoyed. Well, I started thinking of buying a new remote (handset) but then I thought I might try taking the remote apart, and seeing if I could fix it. Well, this morning I went in the garage, took the remote apart, cleaned all the contacts on the circuit board, and the buttons. I used denatured alcohol with a cotton swab. I put it back together and boy what a difference, the buttons respond immediately,I can scroll through all the menus,and the telescope moves on the mount without any hitching or jerky movements like it used to. I can’t wait for tonight, I hope it’s clear sky’s!
As a side note, I have my eye on a Celestron 8se scope. Does anyone have any opinions on that scope? Thanks, sorry for the long winded post.