southern steve

at last those magic words "alignment successful".  Canopus and Sirius will always be dear to me.  thanks for your help fellas.

thanks Geoff and Neil H that is very helpful.  Yes after a few hours frustration I realised that synscan is displaying stars which are still below my horizon....guess that's a common trap for young players... so I just have to stay up a bit later and learn to work the different alignment methods a bit better. I should have betelgeuse, sirius and regulus tonight as well as acrux here in the south.  clear sky so fingers crossed tonight's the night.

good news fellow starloungers, the problem was the power supply.  I used a 12V 1A AC DC adapter off the mains power supply and the handset works perfectly now.  thanks for your advice. Now I just need to figure out the alignment process...

thanks for your comments fellow starloungers.  I will work on getting a superior alternate power source.  I got lucky just now and managed to progress to the timezone screen before it all faded and the display went blank. So I suspect the fault is the power source not the handset.  

Budgie 1  The mount is the Sky-Watcher Star Discovery mount.   I am using 8 AA cells which were brand new out of the packet when I put them in.  Is there a better power source?

All, I'm having a problem with my synscan handset, brand new for christmas version 4.39.04, I only get to the sun warning then the display fades, the buttons flash red about 5 or 6 times and then go blank.  I turn it off at the mount, then turn on again a few minutes later and same again.  I haven't got past the sun warning in a couple of days and may be 10 attempts.  Any suggestions?