Cosmic Geoff

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.

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.

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.

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.

Check the tripods. I think the SE and Evolution models have the same tripod, while the CPC800 definitely has a more heavy duty tripod. I have seen the C8 SE and Evolution set up side by side in a showroom. The Evolution is evidently a better quality mount, going by the price, spec and reviews. As for portability, it is not difficult to keep the C8 SE fully assembled and carry it through a standard doorway, so I guess the same applies to the C8 Evolution. It's really a matter of how much you feel comfortable spending, and whether you want the bigger scope or a smaller more manageable one. To accurately level the tripod with the provided bubble level, you need to have the mount off. How accurately you need to level the tripod in practice is a matter of judgement. (with my Starsense equipped SE I don't bother). All these scopes/mounts can be rapidly detached from their tripods.

You don't, as most GoTo systems have a catalog of deep-sky objects programmed into the handset. Each to their own; some folks enjoy the simplicity of a manual mount and star-hopping, while others regard star-hopping as a total waste of time and would not be without their GoTo. Depends on whether you will enjoy looking for objects or looking at them. A lot of people do use GoTo, and the more popular of the heavier mounts are only available in GoTo form.

Many decades ago people used to build their own telescopes because telescopes were relatively expensive. In fact as a teenager I reworked a 4" reflector, refiguring the mirror and building a new tube and mount, and then built an 8" fork mounted newtonian from scratch, including grinding and figuring the mirror and constructing the mount. I would not dream of doing that today, when telescopes are so much cheaper to buy compared with average earnings, and many secondhand instruments are available. Nowadays IMHO the only reason to build your own telescope is because you want to have a hands-on project - and that is a perfectly valid reason.

The lower the object, the more atmosphere the light has to travel through, and the shimmering caused by the atmosphere is correspondingly worse. Have you noticed how stars near the horizon twinkle more than stars near the zenith? And the lower the object, the more the atmosphere disperses the light into colours, acting like a prism. This last can be fixed (reversed) using an ADC but the shimmering (=bad seeing) can't be fixed in an amateur situation. In past years I have obtained useful images with planets at altitudes of 12 degrees or less. Planets near the horizon can also be blocked by buildings and trees. That's another issue altogether, but one you should check before investing £££'s. You can check the altitude of the planets at any given time using websites like this one: https://heavens-above.com/PlanetSummary.aspx?lat=52.0406&lng=-0.7594&loc=Milton+Keynes&alt=110&tz=GMT and use a planetarium program in conjunction with what you can see in the southern night sky to estimate the height of any obstacles. Or get up at 1 to 2 am this coming morning and take a look. 🙂

Because it's a specialised scope with a small FOV? There is not much you can do about the planets being low other than observe close to meritian transit, and use an atmospheric dispersion corrector. I'd rate an ADC as an essential accessory this year.

I can't explain that in a brief reply - you'll have to read the 'small print'. Performance is similar to a SCT but (for instance) there is no corrector plate to get dewed up. And the secondary mirror is hyperbolic (which used to be difficult to make but Chinese technology seems now able to do it affordably.) There are one or two reviews on this forum from guys who have bought one.

There are one or two articles online about the history of the Celestron C8 (of which the C9.25 is a variant). IIRC the C8's manufactured in the USA for the Halley's Comet apparition some decades ago were reckoned to have poor quality control. The recent ones are made in China. I don't know how long the C9.25 has been in production by comparison. Recent ones made in China with Starbright XLT coatings are hopefully okay. There's a guy on this forum who is refurbishing a C8 several decades old.

I'd go for the Celestron C9.25. I have read very positive reports of these, and suspect the negative reports could be over-fussy, or refer to older scopes made in years of poor quality control. By the 66% rule, £800-£850 seems a sensible price for a used one. You could be adventurous and buy one of the new 8" Classic Cassegrains. Or get the Mak 180, which by all accounts is an excellent planetary scope for its size. I would not recommend a Newtonian, unless you really need to shave a few hundred pounds off your budget. The SCT has a much greater depth of focus, so there will be no problem attaching imaging accessories such as atmospheric dispersion corrector, flip mirror or filter housing. Not so the Newtonian where you may have as little as 20mm focus range to play with. Also the more compact SCT has an eyepiece conveniently placed that does not move around as much as that on the Newt. At my location, the 'seeing' seems to be the limiting factor for planetary viewing or imaging.

I have a Nexus 7 tablet on which I installed a couple of apps which in conjunction with the built in digital compass are meant to show a map of the sky aligned with the real sky. The performance was rather hit and miss and I often had to twirl the tablet around in an effort to get the app to align itself with the sky. Based on this experience I would not expect much of the app system you have bought. None of these devices are going to align with any great accuracy. Any ferrous metal on or near the scope could affect it, for instance.