Cosmic Geoff

The gear alignment does look like it needs fettling. It couldn't be that the motor assemblies need to be swapped over? 😀 Or did the previous owner fit the wrong upgrade kit?? It is impossible to quantify the motor noise from a video recording, unless there is a side-by-side comparison. But I was surprised by the level of noise my EQ-5 Synscan upgrade made when doing a fast slew, compared with my Celestron GoTo mounts. Otherwise the EQ-5 Synscan works OK (but I put it together myself. 🙂).

If it's new, and you think it's faulty, refer the problem to where you bought it. It should be under warranty, and it's their problem, not yours. (And if they are useless, you know not to buy from them again.)

I have had this error twice with the same mount - a SLT Nexstar+ - and fixed it by reloading the mount firmware using the Celestron utilities. Clearly the problem I had was corrupt firmware. I found a utility that actually tested the firmware, which confirmed that corruption of the memories was present.

A dew shield for a SCT should be regarded as standard equipment - not an accessory. I have found that the easiest way to get a totally out of focus SCT into focus is to aim it at a really bright near-point light source, e.g. Jupiter or Sirius. You should see a grey donut. Just wind the focus knob in the direction that makes the donut smaller and ultimately reduces it to a point of light (or small disk, in the case of a bright planet).

I have found that Windows 7 networking always works, but Windows 10 networking is a total pain with devices failing to see each other as often as not.

If you don't know the seller it would be wise to exercise some caution. There is not a whole lot that can go wrong with the Startravel. It's a low-powered scope, so if you can persuade the owner to let you mount it and focus on the end of his garden you will see that it basically works. You should get the owner to power up the mount and show you that something sensible appears on the display, and that when the relevant buttons are pressed the motors make a noise and move the mount. If you get that far, it's 99% certain to be in good order.

I suggest that you take a hard look at where you are prepared to compromise, to keep within your budget. If you can do without a powered mount (no tracking, no GoTo) you could get a fair sized Dobsonian mounted Newtonian within your budget. If you want GoTo, you can get a smallish telesccope on a lightweight and rather wobbly mount. If you want a non-wobbly GoTo mount that will take sundry small and medium-sized scopes, that can be used for some entry level imaging of whatever you like, you want at minimum an Eq5 Synscan at about £700, and a HEQ5 (about £1000) or EQ6 (wellover £1000) would not be overkill. If you want to image planets, the bigger the scope the better, but I have found one can get a result with an alt-azimuth GoTo, even a wobbly one. Alternatively, use an equatorial mount that tracks. BTW, ALL GoTo mounts include tracking in their functions. Note also that non-wobbly mounts can be decidedly heavy, and some setups can take quite some time to assemble and get working every time you take them out. One of my setups is configured so that I can carry it outside and get it going in a few minutes without having to align the GoTo myself,, but if you want one exactly like it you will need to spend nearly £2000 at current prices.

Neither of these options is lightweight. If you want a SCT on a heavy duty twin fork mount you should also look at Celestron's CPC range. The CPC800 OTA/mount assembly is heavy at around 20Kg and personally I would not want to handle anything heavier. But it is an excellent setup for planetary imaging etc and very stable, with minimal wobble. The Meades seem to have a good reputation for optics but a poor reputation for the reliability of the mounts. And there was something recently about the company going into receivership. Isn't the LX200 an old design? If you want it for visual, consider also the Celestron SCTs on the SE and Evolution mounts (or an AVX, to mention another option). The SE is decidedly the cheap option, but adequate for visual use. You can do planetary imaging with it, as I have found, but the backlash and wobble can get a bit annoying in this role. And there are now "Classical Cassegrains" available which you should check out to see if this design appeals to you.

Yes I see your point, but a 'starter' telescope can usually be re-purposed as a grab'n go or holiday telescope.

The four brighter stars of the Trapezium are easy to see, but the E and F are more difficult. AFAIK I have only seen the E and F stars by imaging the Trapezium with my 8" SCT.

If you are seriously considering the 10" GoTo Dob, which seems a fine instrument, you should probably run it past the person who is going to help you take it outdoors, given its size and weight. Have you a storage location? You also need to budget for a power pack and approx. three decent eyepieces suited to a telescope of this focal ratio (f5?) If you want to know details of the alignment procedure (which typically involves aligning it with two stars), you can download a Synscan manual at any time. My telescopes are in my signature, and I use all three for different tasks. I have not gone bigger than 8" as I felt a bigger instrument would be too big and too heavy for my circumstances, and the 'seeing' (q.v.) at this location would not allow a bigger telescope to give of its best except on very rare occasions.

You can buy a GoTo dob (see astronomy dealers' websites) but they are far more expensive than the manual version. In general the GoTo is effectively built into the base, and the most practical (or only) way to upgrade is to sell the whole thing and buy anew. There is an exception if the telescope is a solid tube (=round cylinder, not a truss) you can scrap the chipboard base, buy tube rings and a dovetail bar, and put it on an equatorial heavy duty GoTo mount suitable for allsorts of imaging if you want, but be warned that the cost of doing this could be eye-watering- several times what you paid for the manual outfit in the first place. While a 10" is obviously more capable, you don't need one that big to see some of these things. A metorite is a space rock that has fallen to the ground. If you want a GoTo mounted scope, for this budget you can buy a rather small scope on a lightweight mount. You can buy a good sized manual Dobsonian outfit for this budget, if that's what you want. You don't need a GoTo mount to find the Moon or Jupiter. 🙂 But trying to image with a Dobsonian is like rowing across the English Channel - some people have succeeded in doing it but most people would take the ferry.

What is your budget? What max size and weight is acceptable, given that you/your helper have to move it outside? What kind of tracking is acceptable - manual (=you push it or twiddle knobs), motorised (= an electrical motor moves an equatorial mount (q.v.) at the right speed to counteract the Earth's rotation) or the full monty - a GoTo mount - all GoTo mounts include tracking among their functions? Do you want to image the moon and planets only? Or deep-sky objects in addition to these? This has more severe requirements re. a mount and probably requires a different telescope and camera. If you can write down answers to these and get back to us, it is more likely to elicit constructive suggestions. As a general comment, I would suggest that you think of buying a relatively cheap and simple telescope (it does not matter that much what sort), and then buy another later in the light of what you have learnt and what you liked or didn't like about the first one. Trying to buy a telescope for life that does everything is unlikely to work. (that is why some of your correpondents list several telescopes and mounts in their signatures) Note that any sort of telescope, even a small cheap one, will give a 'wow' factor when looking a the moon. What sort of telescope you buy for observing the planets is going to be a compromise between what would be ideal, and real-life considerations like cost, size, weight and whether you are allowed to build an observatory to put it in. We can't tell you which one would suit you - it has to be your choice. Almost every type of telescope (except short focal length achromats) has been recommended by some people as suitable for planetary observing, so the choice is wide. There is a thread on this forum entitled "What can I expect to See?" If you have not found it yet, I suggest you do so and study it. Asteroids - the brighter ones are not hard to see, but the hard part is distinguishing them from stars. Comets - spectacular ones do not come around that often, but you may see one visible in binoculars or a small telescope if you wait long enough. Imaging and GoTo gear increases your chances of bagging one.

Don't rush to spend your money on upgrades. You should wait and see what upgrades you yourself think are necessary or desirable, after using the scope for a while. Things you might (or might not) want to consider are: an upgrade to the stock eyepieces, especially the 9 or 10 mm one, a different finder (e.g angled or RACI), a RA motor to make the mount track, a planetary camera for a play with planetary imaging, a whole-aperture solar filter (you can make one with Baader film)

The dovetail bar that came with my ST102 Startravel is 17cm long. However I have modified it slightly to countersing a bolt, so that it would slide into a Celestron SLT clamp, and again with an extra hole so I could slide the tube forward to balance a DSLR on the back end.

I have a Svbony helical focuser (non-rotating) and a Chinese one that looks the same. You can get these things with various different threads on the inner end, to suit your kit. Mine screws onto the focuser of a 102mm f5 Startravel, adapting it for a planetary 1.25" camera. The extra length is no problem if you can omit a diagonal used for visual.

I image things with mine. 🙂 The GoTO helps with finding targets in the first place, and with accurate tracking. It seems to be regarded as the absolute minimum for serious imaging.

This does not seem to be a popular mount in the UK. Until someone better informed comes along, here's my stab in the dark. If Sirius didn't write their software from scratch, they may have based it on someone else's. In the latest Sky-watcher Synscan software, MEL and MAZ are parameters that pop up at the end of alignment to show you how much your polar alignment is off, and there is some procedure for using them to fine-tune the mechanical adjustment. I generally ignore them as it's too much for my aged brain. 🙁 I have found that the GoTo is not very accurate, particularly if the sought object is the other side of the meridian from the two alignment stars, and have got around this by setting up the mount with added software for a "plate-solve and re-sync" (which works brilliantly, BTW). Addendum, from review: "The Sirius equatorial mount comes with the SynScan hand controller that is often used with Orion and Sky Watcher GoTo setups. It offers a 42,900 object database, guided sky tours, and more."

Minimum: Sky-watcher EQ3-2 Synscan. Recommendation: EQ5 Synscan - possibly better quality, definitely more possibilities for mounting alternative scopes, or imaging. Alternatives: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/explore-scientific-mounts.html

Well done. I left the mount out and set the alarm for 4am but found that cloud had come over earlier than forecast. 🙁 And it wil be cloudy for the next few days.😧

The older handset is the Nexstar*. I found that all three variants (Nexstar*, Nexstar+ and Starsense) workd with the C8 SE.

I have a Nexstar+ handset, now several years old, used with a SLT mount. It was OK to begin with it, but the buttons have become less and less responsive in the top row, so that I have to mash the Align, Enter or Back buttons repeatedly to get any response, and it is becoming worse. A couple of years ago I dismantled the handset and tried cleaning the button tracks, but it did not make much if any difference. I have searched online and not found a similar case, much less any fix. Last time I used the handset it was so bad on the Align button that I almost gave up. Now I am wondering what to do next - buy a new Nexstar+ handset, upgrade the whole mount to something else, or use the spare (older version) Nexstar handset I'm not using, that came with the C8 SE?

The auto two star is probably the one to try, unless you have no clue which alignment star is which - in which case use the sky align. If you just want to observe, e.g. Venus, then use the solar system align. Would it be easier if I was to connect a pc via ethernet cable!? I doubt it. It doesn't connect via Ethernet, but by a combination of serial and USB, with adapter.

There are several motorising kits available: RA only (6 volt) - cheapest. RA + Dec (6 volt) RA+Dec deluxe, with provision for guiding Synscan GoTo upgrade kit. - most useful. Your choice.

A dew shield. Essential in the UK climate. An external power supply. You should think of upgrading the 10mm eyepiece, as the kit eyepiece is usually of poor quality.