Cosmic Geoff

I have one of the older ZWO ASI120MC.  I used it with a Dell Vostro laptop running Windows 7 and it worked fine.  I don't remember the frame rate but it wasn't slow.

I think that your inexpensive Newtonian at f5 focal ratio wil benefit much more from exotic eyepieces than the expensive C9.25 at f10.  I found that the Celestron X-cel LX eyepieces, or even the humble Celestron Omni Plossls, worked well enough in a C8.

As for the Barlow lens, you don't need one for a f10 telescope. A regular eyepiece of around 6mm or 10mm will give all the power you are likely to need.

I second the suggestion of a binoviewer.  Actually, I found planetary visual observation a bit disappointing and moved into planetary imaging to get the best view I could out of the optics.

Depending on your latitude, which you have not disclosed, you may also find an ADC (atmospheric dispersion corrector) useful.  An ADC is almost essential for viewing Jupiter and Saturn in the UK at present as they are very low in the sky.

Modern smartphones often have good cameras - they should, when the smartphone often costs more than the scopes some people hang them on. 🙂 However, smartphones are not designed for taking planet images through a telescope. 

Are you taking single still images?  Successful planetary imaging depends on taking thousands of images (= a video) and using clever  software to combine the best bits to produce a clear final image.  Dedicated planetary imaging cameras are in fact video cameras that fit in the scope in place of an eyepiece.  A single shot generally looks blurred because of the distorting effect of the atmosphere, but with the processing, at the final stage a clear image appears as if by magic.  With Jupiter and Saturn currently so low, the problem is accentuated.

You might be able to achieve this by taking a video with your phone and transferring it to a PC or laptop for processing. If not, you may have to bite the bullet and buy the proper kit. 😦

Nice shots of Jupiter and Mars.

Here are images of Jupiter and Saturn taken around 00.30hrs BST on 11 Jul 2020.  They turned out relatively well, unlike a set I took a few days ago. I suspect 'seeing' is a major factor.

Kit: CPC800, ASI224MC, ADC, captured with Sharpcap, processed in Registax6, best 20% of 5000 frames.  The monochrome Saturn image was taken in infrared.

I did not have a sightline for Mars, or for Comet Neowise.😦

From the symptoms I doubt that there is anything wrong with the camera, but I could be wrong. In any case you would have to return at least the entire Starsense kit, as the dealer is not going to exchange anything other than a complete kit.  You could try for a straight refund unless you consider the Starsense really useful (when it works).

It may be a Starsense issue, or it may be the kind of un-diagnosed weirdness decribed in some of the Cloudynights posts.

The main issue here is the adequacy of the mount.  With a GoTo mount, having an equatorial is only useful for long imaging exposures (no field rotation).  You can in fact do a lot of imaging of the EEVA variety with short exposures on an alt-az GoTo mount.  There is no point trying for a long exposures if the mount wobbles or fails to track accurately.

I have a very similar mount from Celestron and I judged that the tripod was not stable enough even for visual use, prompting me to buy a used manual EQ-5 and also to make up a wooden tripod that would take the SLT mount head.  So is your mount going to be adequate for long exposure imaging if placed on a wedge? I think not.

In theory your idea is good but in practice it is a major feat of engineering to get this sort of remote viewing to work.  If you get a camera, attach it to the scope and wire it to a laptop a few feet away, you will find that getting this lower tech version to work, be in focus, and have the object on the screen is enough of a challenge.

You can see quite a lot with this telescope but you need to do some homework to refine your expectations. There is a thread somewhere on this forum entitled "What can I expect to see?"

Stars as little white dots means the telescope is working properly. Double stars will be a source of perennial interest.

If you live in an urban area, you can forget galaxies except for a few bright examples.

You can see something of planets but you may need better quality eyepieces than the kit ones, and a Barlow lens.

Star clusters can give satisfying views with this kind of telescope.

Clear skies!

I sympthize to a degree - I upgraded to an EQ-5 Synscan a few months ago and an still not satisfied I have got it tamed.  But, with respect, I think you may be overcomplicating things and also may not have grasped how the mount works.

Polaris is not a good alignment star for an equatrial mount. Pick anything else. During a two or three star alignment, the mount slews itself to near the next alignment star. This is based on your initial polar alignment and start position, so inevitably it will be a bit off, but in finder field.  Your next task is to fine align it on the second alignment star.

For the moment, forget the Stellarmate and raspberry (whatever they are.)

I saw it at 3am on the morning of the 11th.  I had to stand in the road near my house as there is no clear horizon to the NE from my property. I knew to look in line with Capella and Beta Aurigae and could just see a faint smudge there.  I put the 10x50 binoculars on it a saw a bright nucleus with long tail. An amazing sight, never seen anything like it.  I have seen comets before, but at best they were telescopic objects I could just see.  No chance of trying to image it as I don't want to stand with my kit in the middle of a road.

On going back indoors I found I could get a line of sight on it from a bedroom window, but the view through Victorian glass + secondary glazing was very bad.

From other reports it seems I could, in theory, see it earlier in the night.

Did you search online for useful postings, quoting the screen error messages? There is stuff on the Cloudynights forum. That should give you various things to try. If none work, it is probably time to send it back under warranty. I still suspect a bad connection problem.

You can check the firmware version in your handset and see if it is the latest available. If it is the latest version, you don't need to do anything.

Even if it isn't the latest version you probably don't need to do anything.

Old engineer's saying: if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it.

There are posts from people in this forum who have updated  firmware and made things worse.

8 minutes ago, John said:

http://www.specola.altervista.org/alterpages/files/BrochureTelescopiMARIOSPADA1991.pdf

The weight of the OTA is astonishing. I wonder how one would carry the outfit outside. No wonder the brochure shows a tri-pier option with wheels.

You might learn more from a Google search... seems to be a very rare make.  I suspect the optics are made elsewhere, unless we accept that the technology to figure SCT mirrors and corrector plates exists in Verona.

How old is it, and what exactly do the mount electronics do? That's what I'd be asking.

How does the price asked compare with a used Celestron C8 SE, with similar optics?

Nowadays, one has reservations about using a wedge mount for a SCT.  It is reckoned difficult to do a polar alignment, and now we have GoTo mounts, an equatorial mount is only really needed for long exposure deep space astrophotography, a task for which an 8" f10 SCT is  not particularly suited, especially not at the beginner level.

The Starsense, I have discovered, can produce a lousy alignment even when there is nothing wrong with it.  It does not seem to work well in bright skies.  On the other hand it will still work with partial cloud cover.

As you have just learned, updating equipment firmware is not a cure-all for all problems. 😕

I suggest two things: restore the firmware to the version it had when you bought it.   Or  Google/Bing for the message that appears in the handset display and see if you can find anything relevant.

The Starsense will give an error unless you connect the camera - it will not come ready without it.  Are you connecting the camera while the unit is powered up? Don't do that.  Otherwise I do not know why you are getting a 'telescope model could not be read' message.  It could be a 'bad connection' problem.  Try reseating connectors including camera, check the camera is plugged in the correct (aux) port and apply power.  If it still does not work, try Googling  or Bing for "starsense telescope model could not be read error"

Since the original HC works, one can assume the mount is OK.

By the way, I have a CPC800 and have not bothered to connect my Starsense to it. With the GPS all I have to do to align it is a 'two star auto align' which is not a lot of work.

Check the field of view you are getting with this telescope and camera. Andromeda is very large - up to three degrees - and the field of view of this telescope is relatively small.  http://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/

The lat/long is not that critical, as evidenced by the 'nearest city' option in the firmware.  There are lots of websites and apps that will give you more accurate figures.

The GoTo with these mounts in practice does not always place objects dead centre.  For greater accuracy, you can use alignment stars nearer the object of interest, or use the "Precise GoTo" option in the handset menu.

9 hours ago, Arshad Wali Muhammad said:

If press enter it takes me back to the first screen of star sense is ready 

So is it working or isn't it? At the conclusion of a successful Starsense alignment you press Enter and it goes back to the Ready screen, IIRC.

Did you figure out where the printed instructions are wrong, or do you need some more help with that?

If you gave more detail it would be easier to offer you help.

You can buy some very cheap cameras that will work for planetary imaging, but my experience is that you get what you pay for, and the cheaper ones are not very good.  Currently I am using a ZWO ASI224MC.

Compared with a 127mm Mak SLT, the C8 SE looks a lot bigger and a head taller, but the tripod footprint (with both tripods retracted) is only about 3cm more.

Why do you want an EQ mount? The only obvious reason is for deep-space astrophotography, and the C8 is not particularly suited for this unless you are an expert imager wanting to capture smaller objects. 

The Meade 10" is obviously bigger.  So far as I know, Meade optics are good, but so are Celestron SCT optics.

18 minutes ago, Andy38416 said:

Thanks for all the advice. I’m definitely leaning to the 8 SE rather than the 6 evolution. I’m trying to find somewhere that has them viewable so I can get an idea of size etc. Might need to wait a little while for post lockdown shops to start opening again.

I could message you some actual dimensions if that helps.

As a footnote to the above, the C9.25 Evolution has, I believe, the same heavy duty tripod as the CPC800.

The CPC series are extremely stable and have very little backlash in the gearing but the mount/fork/OTA assemblies are very heavy.

The C8 SE OTA is apparently meant to be kept as a unit with the mount head.  It is easy enough to detatch it, but in the absence of any handle to give you a grip on the fat OTA it is Not A Good Idea  to mount or de-mount it over concrete. It is easy to carry the mount head/OTA assembly, and it will stand on its flat base.

If you want to keep it authentic, brass RAS threaded eyepieces come up from time to time on ebay.   I bought (and re-sold) a couple, and found they would just fit into a modern 1.25" diagonal, which gives one an idea of the overall diameter.