Cosmic Geoff

While I have not examined one of these mounts, I am surprised that the azimuth motor should have developed significant bearing wear. My experience of small motors is that this doesn't happen. If it has, one might expect that under load it would fail to engage with the gearbox at all. If it IS a motor fault, getting another might prove troublesome and if you can't definitely identify it as a generic motor you can buy on Ebay or from China, your only other recourse is to buy another subassembly or scrap mount. Or find a craftsman prepared to fit another bearing bush to your motor. A useful means of diagnostic where the altitude and azimuth drives (etc) have similar parts is to swap bits over and see if the fault follows the part. The altitude and azimuth motor/gearboxes in the Celestron SLT mount are the same (same part number) and I swapped them over while chasing a fault. (It wasn't in the motors). If you attach tell-tales (bits of paper or magic marker marks) to slow moving parts, you can see if anything is moving (slowly) or not.

Depends if you add the ADC before or after the Barlow lens. The increase in focal length isn't x3 anyway, it depends on how far the camera or eyepiece is from the Barlow lens. I think that you will find that 'best focal length' is a rather variable concept in practice.

Right. Actually the concrete in my backyard isn't level either. I suspect that no lawn, concrete or decking is going to be perfectly level unless it is laid by a master craftsman. If it's for imaging, one of those platesolving methods for polar aligning should work even if you can't see Polaris. And when you have done it once and marked the ground, you will have the rough setting for next time.

Double stars, or globular clusters, or the brighter planetary nebulae. Your Nexstar handset should contain lists of some of these objects. There is no shortage of 'what to view' guides online.

No need to invent unconventional solutions. Many people use mains power to +12v regulated power packs. Or car engine starters which deliver +12v. Or dedicated astro power tanks, the LiFePo rather than lead-acid varieties being increasingly favoured.

TBH the 4" Nexstar 4SE is a bit small for planetary. Depending on your definition of portability you could look at the 6 SE and the 8SE I have the latter, and it is still light and compact enough to carry outdoors as 1 assembly. Did you mean the Starsense Autoalign (camera system) at around £350? I have one but you do NOT need that for planetary observation. There are various Maks and mounts in the smaller sizes. The Celestron 127mm Mak and the Skywatcher 127mm Mak are basically the same, and can (or could) be bought with the same-looking GoTo mount - only the GoTo system software differed. IMHO the Nexstar system is easier to use than the Skywatcher Synscan -I have both. And the Nexstar has a handy Solar System Align that lets you align on a planet. The Synscan has no obvious equivalent. Celestron now offer some small SCTs (5" and 6") with alt-azimuth GoTo mounts. I don't like the look of the tripods though - wobbly?

Are all the buttons failing to respond, or just some of them? or do they only work if you press hard? It should be possible to distinguish between a button contact or other electronic problem. If it's a button problem, you should be able to work around it with NexRemote. Or just buy another controller. (Some people have deep pockets).

I have had this problem with Celestron hand controllers and found that dismantling and cleaning the contacts and rubbers effects at least a partial cure. No battery involved.

You can look up the moon phase and rise/set times on sites like' moon rise and set'. Similarly there are sites like https://heavens-above.com/PlanetSummary which will give you the positions of the planet at any given time. If the Moon does not intrude, this trip would be an opportunity to view galaxies (almost a waste of time from an urban site). Provided you can use GoTo.

The included 25mm eyepiece is okay (I use mine every time I take the scope out) but the hirer really ought to offer a range of eyepieces, something like 15mm and 8mm, or a zoom eyepiece, and maybe a 32mm to widen the field. A Barlow will work, but the C6 has a 1.5 metre focal length so there is no need for one if the suitable eyepieces are on hand.

I have taken the similar C8 to a dark skies site and found I could see a lot of galaxies with it at this time of year. You could also look at double stars and globular clusters. Also Jupiter and Uranus if you set up early in the evening. Other planets will probably not be accessible. This depends on you being able to operate the GoTo. I found the Celestron Nexstar alt-az GoTo system easy to master, and got the hang of it in one evening, with the aid of the manual. GoTo mounts seem to baffle some folks, though. 🙂 If you do rent the C6, make sure that you get an external power pack with it and are not relying on the internal dry cells. As mentioned above the C6 SE package is not suited to imaging. If you want to get imaging results from a short holiday, hire or buy a smart scope, e.g. the Seestar S50.

The Celestron 6SE should be easy to set up and use for visual. I don't know about the Vaonis Ve 50 Vespera, but the USP of these smart scopes is that they are supposed to be easy to use for imaging. I don't know what you intend here, but I would not try attaching it to the C6 SE if I were you, as this scope is not well suited for imaging.

Try defining your goals. If you want to take award-winning images, some major changes of kit may be necessary. If you want to just collect some images with modest effort, you could go for EVAA and live-stack images collected with Sharpcap and a Startravel 102mm refractor. A new Startravel 102 should be within your budget, and you will not need guiding.

I have two of these. They work well on my SCTs. I have no problem with them..

The newer one is a different and more complex product, with guiding, which does not seem to have attracted a lot of attention so far. I think the way to go is to buy the gear, set it up, use it, and THEN see if there is any function worth paying £400 for that isn't covered by an ASAIR, park or whatnot.

Be aware that upmarket diagonals offer better build quality and longer life rather than any noticeable improvement in the view. I upgraded the diagonal on my 127mm Mak and could not see any difference.

It depends what mount you are going to use it on, and whether said mount is permanently mounted on a pier, and whether the mount has built-in GPS. In the case of a permanently mounted EQ-5 Synscan, and a CPC800 with GPS, I have not seen much point in attaching the Starsense. But attached to a C8 SE it is quite useful as it allows the outfit to be carried outside and got going within minutes.

The review video seems to be 90 mins of speculation. If you look up the size of an IMX533 sensor, this will give you the field stop size of the equivalent eyepiece. Not very wide-field, I think. I assume there is no optical see-through, just a magnified view of a small display screen. Convenience apart, it remains to be seen what this device does that you could not do with an IMX533 chip camera, a laptop and Sharpcap.

I understood this part, Sony IMX533 Color CMOS sensor but otherwise am not sure how the thing works, or how much it costs.

On the smaller 102mm Startravel the dew shield just pulls off.

No idea, except that I stopped using my LiFePo Celestron powertank with my EQ-5 Synscan mount after it shut itself down a couple of times. Now I use a lead-acid car engine starter, which does not have that problem.

You do have to enter the location. if you read the Autoalign manual, it will tell you how.

You still appear a little confused by meter use. As a former electronics engineer, I find it hard to put myself in the position of someone who has no clue about electrics. However, your appliance PSU above appears to be centre positive. If the meter indicates positive, then whatever the red lead is contacting is positive. When testing such plugs, it will be less confusing if you always touch black to outer and red to pin, so that centre positive leads indicate (+) and centre negative leads (-). If you have any round batteries (e.g. AA) lying around, test them with your meter. The flat end is always negative, and the domed end positive.

No reason why you can't make a wedge, but why is it necessary? It is implied here that the mount that came with the telescope is alt-azimuth (otherwise it would not need a wedge). Many alt-azimuth mounts are not suitable for astrophotography even when placed on a wedge, so it would appear a better plan to buy an equatorial mount that is suited to astrophotography. What are the telescope and mount in question?

A question. How do you intend to fit an ADC to a 200PDS, given the extra path introduced by the length of the ADC, and the limited focuser travel of the typical Newtonian?