Celestron Nexstar 127 SLT Mak Failing To Align

[M4lcs67]

Hello,

I bought this telescope last week and have been outside with it most nights weather permitting. While I have got the basics sorted I have now been trying to align the scope off 3 different stars, but it keeps coming back with alignment failed.

My garden is fairly dark and east facing.

I am following the instructions to the letter, but nothing doing so far. Don't know if anyone could shed some light on what I am doing wrong.

Thanks

[Veracocha]

Are you absolutely recentering and pressing enter the moment you have made the last minute adjustment?, I wasn't and it took me ages to realise it and could never get an alignment.

[M4lcs67]

Hi, Not sure. Wasn't certain that it was so critical. Could that be the reason then? If the blasted clouds keep away i'll give it a whirl tonight.

Thanks

[Veracocha]

Could be; first you slew to a star and then press enter iirc. Then you make a final micro adjustment and press enter again. Then it asks for stars 2 & 3 etc.

Try it in the house, fool it into thinking the stars are there to test it. That's what I used to do.

Edited May 14, 2011 by Veracocha

[M4lcs67]

Nice one. Thanks for that. I'll give it a try.

[smudgeball]

Hi

Only thing I would really add is try and go for stars as wide apart as possible.

I did a skyalign last night and chose three stars spread across the arc of my view from my back garden.

I was out for over two hours and hit every target I input in the hand controller.

To be fair I've had evenings when this hasn't happened, but a lot of people on hear strongly recommend spreading your alignment targets as much as possible.

I'm sure you'll get it working.

Regards

Neil

[Demonperformer]

Quick check of the usual suspects (not intending to be patronizing):

Tripod level?

Lat & long entered correctly? E/W confusion is a common problem.

Date entered correctly? MM/DD/YY not DD/MM/YY

Time entered accurately? Daylight saving correct?

If it still is not working (and I could never get the skyalign to work satisfactorily) try going initially for a one-star align (east facing evening, Vega is a good star to use at the moment). If that aligns happily, use the GOTO to slew to another star (menu|named stars) e.g. Arcturus. Does it centre OK (use your longest widest eyepiece)? If it is close, centre it precisely and add it to the alignment stars (undo|align|replace unassigned|enter|align). If that works, and it then slews around the sky properly, you at least have a means of using the scope while you are trying to suss out what is wrong with the skyalign procedure.

HTH

[ronin]

I go with DP on this, check EVERYTHING you entered. Don't assume anything, certainly do not assume that you must have put it in correctly and don't assume that the scope will know anything.

You know that Lat 52N and Long 2W is in the UK and in the 00 time zone, it has to be, but for some odd reason the scope has to be told the time zone and the Lat/Long.

As said West is -ve for some scopes. So unless you are in Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk or Kent you could have a -ve value - If that is the format they take.

Also level everything as much as possible, the scope is working out the errors it has to apply, could be that they are simply too great for the scope to guarantee an accurate goto when you request it. The message could simply be a generic one for: Too many errors to compensate for.

Edited May 14, 2011 by ronin

[Specman]

I'm with DP on this also...Every time I've been out on alignment I had the date set the wrong way around or forgot daylight saving or made a bad choice re star selection. I would also recommend a illuminated cross hair eyepiece. Really improved my GOTO.

Good luck!

Mark

Edited May 14, 2011 by Specman

[Slangers]

DP is spot on. I have generally given up on skyalign as it fails for me far too often. I almost exclusively go for a two star align and find this very effective.

[rowan46]

me too for, 2 star align

[smudgeball]

I'll back that up as well with DP's comments

2 Star Align is best especially when viewing is good.

Down side ?...well you have to know a bit about astronomy to line up your first star, but hey that's what it's all about.

You'll know when the scope slews to the 2nd star just how accurate your alignment will be.

Hope it's clear tonight.

Looking ok up here so far ??????????????

[MorningMajor]

I had terrible problems with mine when I first got it - would try all the different alignments and it would seemingly go off with a mind of its own, I also found that it wouldn't let me change the long/lat settings, so did a factory reset of the software and voila - no problems since

[Veracocha]

My 127 Mak (Celestron) was possibly the most simple & accurate system that I ever used, certainly better than my current Synscan 3/HEQ5Pro. Once I learnt to press enter to select the star and press enter again once I had finely adjusted to center it I found it was flawless.

[M4lcs67]

Thanks for all your comments. I'll keep on persevering. It will come i'm sure.

[Capricorn]

Check everything at lest twice over.

One person on SGL was in the same position as you and said the same. EVERYTHING IS ENTERED CORRECT!!!

A visit from someone passing near to them 3 weeks later and after much swapping of ideas solved the problem in 5 minutes. They had entered Lat-Long not Long-Lat.

The scope thought it was close to the equator somewhere around the Bahamas, not Newcastle.

Edited May 15, 2011 by Capricorn

[MorningMajor]

The scope thought it was close to the equator somewhere around the Bahamas, not Newcastle.

So do I (not that I'm actually in Newcastle either!)

[ngunas]

Hello everyone,

I don't know if this topic is still alive but I have a different question. I have Mak. 127 SLT as well, I have no alignment problem, actually I can do every alignment (Skyalign, 2 star, Solar System Alignment etc.) easily. But, when I press a button in the hand control to find a planet or star, Scope goes to very close to the object but not precisely. I mean it goes to a little bit right of the target and you cannot see the star through eyepiece. You just need to adjust to get precise view. Is that normal? It is like, scope points an hour later the location of star than it should be right now. I double check my finder scope alignment and Daylight saving options.

Edited June 21, 2018 by ngunas

[happy-kat]

What eye peice do you use to align, do you use your least powered and fine tune alignment then switch to higher and fine tune alignment again. Or are you aligning on least powered then go to with higher powered?

[Demonperformer]

Also, how far apart are your alignment points? Slight errors on close alignment points result in magnified errors as you move further away.

Alignment on my SE mount got a lot better when (1) I started using a reticle eyepiece, and (2) I started using points that were significantly different in both alt and az.

[Arlington1]

Hi All,

THIS IS A LONG ONE BUT PLEASE HELP!!

New to this forum and I hope no one minds if I jump in and resurect this thread as I am at the stage of pulling my hair out!! The issues as described in the first post on this thread, pretty much descibe my problems that I have been having since being given my scope 11 days ago as a complete surprise for my 54 birthday.

I was excited but perhaps a little but 'meh' when I recieved in but on the first night, two things got me hooked, in fact, I could not even sleep! That was Jupiters moons and Saturns rings. Yeh, its one thing to be able to focus in on a planet but when I saw the bringht dots around Jupiter and realised (after a quick google search confirmation) they were its moons and then, simply having my breath taken away but Saturns rings, suddenly I became an amatuer astronomer.

Anyway, firstly the potential reasons for my problems may well be above in the answers and I shall print these out and go armed, ready to do battle with my scope tonight, with this thread but I also would like to see if anyone has the magic answer or perhaps can see something wrong with what I am doing.

So firstly a little about me. My eyesite is not great. Astigmatism, keratoconus, etc. I have had 6 years of treatments that have resulted in cataracts, lens replacement theropy and still waiting for my last op in my right eye to hopefully, correct my vision. At the moment I wear reading and distance glasses. Not after any sypathy but just telling you as it does hamper my veiwing pleasure and could be part of the set up issues.

I live just outside Hastings, East Sussex and have the privalege of my back garden looking over the North Weald AONB. I look pretty much exactly north west. About 200 yards to my left (looking NW) is an annoying street lamp that gives out too much light pollutuion but other than that, its nice and dark. To the side of my house, I can look South East and get to see Jupiet and Saturn rise each night.

So back to my alignment issues.

Several times I tried Sky Align and it has failed every single time. I have watched on line videos and followed everything through but faliure after faliure! On the way I have made every mistake you can, which does not help. Everytime you see a mistake you are making, you think the next set up will work and its even more gutting when it does not. Wrong date format, not putting in daylight saving, not leveling, all of them.

I tried inputing long and lat and what a nightmare that was. I had to do a self learing session on this when I saw there are fifferent formats and then several different amount of digits. I ended up with

050.53.02

00.37.20

Is that right for Hastings and how much does it matter if I put that in or can I chose the nearest city option (nearest City is Brighton, 32 miles away, as the crow flies).

I am entering the date correctly now and I belive the seconds are not that important? I am using 24hr format (not sure if there is an option for am/pm)

I have alinged the finderscope

Last night, after some research I decided to tryAuto two star align. and that failed twice. It started with problems straight away. I went out armed with a youtube video showing how to use this. I found out where Polaris is and duly waited for it to get dark enough to find Polaris. When I came to do the auto twom star allingment, I found that Polaris was not in the list available!! What the hell? Thats 'the' star surely, how can the scope not list that as an option. So then, I am using a phone app trying to find another named star. These apps are great but I still find it a bit tricky to actually be sure I am selection the right stars.

Anyway, I gave up and decided just to look at Jupiter and Saturn but the Mrs said, lets try one start align. I told her she can do what she wants but auto two star should work and I dont see why anything else will!

It worked!!! Dam her! She used Vega I think.

So, then I told the scope to find Jupiter. It started slewing in the right direction but ended up pointing too high, by about a thumbs width. Thats oaky I thought, bacause I had seen on a youtube video that you can align to objects as you find them. I tried this but it failed (I think because I am so far out)

So then we told it to go find Ursa Major. Off it went in the right general direction but again, it was too high (I was expecting it to be too low if anything!).

At that, I went back to looking at Jupiter and Saturn. One success of the evening was that it was now tracking, which made looking at them so much easier.

So, any advice before tonight? I am hoping that it being too high on Jupiter and Ulsa Major, may give someone a clue as to what I have done wrong?

 

[Arlington1]

Sorry, me again. just something to add that I just noticed. The instruction manual says that after you have entered the standard or daylights savings time (I enter daylight savings) it will ask what time zone you are in. Mine has never asked this. It goes straight to entering the time?

[happy-kat]

Welcome

Daylight saving is Yes

Time zone would be 00:00 anyway if asked, time format likely 24hr

Date mm dd yyyy

Polaris isn't a good alignment star to use anyway as it doesn't move.

Check the alignment of finder to the telescope using the lowest powered eyepiece you have one a very distant object (not the sun)

 

[Arlington1]

Thanks @happy-kat

Ah yeh, thats cool with the time zone. I assumed as it all seems to be American set up the time zone would be the same, I forget that it is us that everyone else sets their clock by (that gives me a little satisfaction i must admit).

I will check allignment first thing I do tonight. I do struggle a little with aligning in the eye piece I must admit, I may invest in a cross hair one.

In one of the comments in here I noticed it said you need to get on with pressing the enter and align buttons as you go through the procedure and it suggested trying indoors, just fooling the scope into thinking you are aiming at stars. I just did that and got my first sucssessful alignment!! Evebn though I know its not aligned correctly, it was good to get a success!

As you suggest, I will also try three stars tonight and not Polaris.

Thanks again

[Cosmic Geoff]

Polaris should work as an alignment star for an alt-azimuth Goto mount. I have used it. I am surprised it does not come up on your alignment list. (it wouldn't if you enter a southern latitude by mistake).

The three-object Skyalign is liable to fail if one of the objects chosen is not on the alignment list. (Too faint, etc).

Your lat and long look about right for Hastings. It is not super critical.

I always use two star auto align.  The three star (Skyalign) is not thought to be any more accurate but can be used even if you can't name the 3 objects.

One star align is not accurate enough unless the tripod is levelled with great accuracy - greater than you can achieve with the built-in bubble level.

You could use a Solar System align and align on Jupiter.

If the system is working properly, objects should land within the field of your 25mm eyepiece.