cantharis

Isn´t the Hubble a Ritchey - Chretien??

I have found everything in this discussion to be very helpful, and especially the alignment star list. In that regard, I was surprised to note that on the night you go off summer time, the automatic alignment star selection changes -- in fact it becomes a lot more friendly! Since the sky hasn't changed noticeably in one day, I don't quite understand this. (My date and time are input from the GPS module.)

So you should stay on GMT (which is Universal Time) all year, as far as the SynScan is concerned!! And ditch the GPS.

Well, our OP seems to have lost interest.

From the Celestron website:

The new NexStar+ hand control allows you to choose languages when it is programmed through the Celestron Firmware Manager to hand control firmware version 5.21 and greater. With this hand control and firmware, change the language by simply pressing and holding the Celestron logo as you power on your hand control. Keep pressing the button as a message "Verifying packages" displays. Release the button after it's finished displaying this message. Then the hand control will switch to a message giving you a choice of languages, scrolling through the languages one by one. To choose a language, press enter and then press enter again to confirm your choice.

For the older NexStar hand control, our latest hand control firmware versions are only available in English versions. If you attempt to upgrade a foreign language hand control to one of these versions you will get an error message from the hand control and the scope won’t be usable. If this happens, contact your distributor to have service or replacement of your hand control. You can downgrade your hand control to version 4.13 in English. However, once you do this, you can’t upgrade the hand control to any foreign language version.

Looks fun for the money.

A free battery is generally a "good thing". Use it till it goes belly-up....then get your deep cycle one from any decent chandler or alternative energy supplier (they are also used with PV arrays). Google is your friend....

Or a caravan equipment supplier.

The problem with the power I discovered was in the adapter - it needs to be the correct amps as well as volts, mine was from my other goto mount so I thought it would be ok, but the amps have to be 'at least 2A / 2000mA' to run properly.

Nice to get a solution to that puzzler, Aenima. I intend to use mine solely on a Powertank - my observing area is a long way from a mains socket - so should be OK with that.

Is it mandatory to use the protective case from the GOTO kit?

I mean did you try to put back the original protective box over the instaled motor?

The GOTO case has a "funny" shape and looks out of place designwise (call me a design nut )

I think it must be mandatory - the GOTO case has the motor connection sockets integral with it. And I like its funky shape !!!

Brilliant pics and info Jake, thanks so much. I think it is appalling that this upgrade is supplied without this basic instruction - and I have written to my supplier telling them exactly that.

CG5 is slightly better than EQ5, so I guess if you want to use better mount over all, swapping synscan to CG5 makes sense.

I just cleaned an re-lubed my EQ5 following Astronomy Boy´s website http://www.astronomyboy.com/cg5/dec2.shtml. Astronomy Boy used a CG5, but the two mounts are totally identical - both made by Synta, who own both Celestron and Skywatcher.