problems setting up GOTO?!!!

[aanickmac]

hi everyone.

i have recently purchased a skywatcher 200pds on a celestron cg-5gt mount. lovely bit of kit but i am having issues doing the 2-3 star align.

the polar align is fine.if i skip the star align and i slew to saturn or any star using the hand control and set it to track, it does it perfectly.

but if i try to do the star align it slews to cappella which i then correctly center in the eyepeice. but what ever the second star i choose to use, it just starts slewing from cappella down towards the ground and keeps going until it reaches its stop!???

i have entered all the correct settings in the control for my location, date,time....but im stuck now and thought someone on here may be able to advise as what i am doing wrong. its driving me crazy!

am i doing something wrong or is it just a setting issue? maybe someone else on here may have had the same or similar issue.any help would be very greatly recieved.

many thanks, nick.

[Ags]

I don't know what is causing your problem but you are not alone - the issue of wrong-direction slewing when aligning nexstar-controlled mounts is often reported on the forum. Unfortunately I've never seen anyone report back on how they solved the problem.

The usual suggestions suggested are to ensure you are entering the date in month-first format and that longitude and latitude have been se the right way round. Also make sure you are in the right time zone.

You can also do a one-star alignment and then add the second star manually.

[Sparrow]

I had this once about 3 years ago and I'm racking my brains to remember what the cause is but I'm pretty sure I'd put the date in in the wrong format - it insists on the American MM/DD/YY rather than the more sensible British DD/MM/YY.

[valleyman]

iF ALL ELSE FAILS AND YOU HAVE DOUBLE CHECKED YOUR SETTINGS THEN GO TO THE SKYWATCHER WEBSITE AND fLASH THE HANDSET.

[Capricorn]

Check Date and time format, but I think it is stated easily on the display.

Check that Longitude and Latitude are entered in the order required.

Check the Time Zone, should be 00. On a Celestron I saw recently it only offered time zones in the US. So you may need to check for this. Would have thought that the software could work out the timezone but seems it doesn't.

The other one is that after it has gone wrong, check the Latitude that it thinks you are at. Sure I have read that a recent version of the firmware has a problem of corrupting the Lat/Long that was entered.

[Cornelius Varley]

iF ALL ELSE FAILS AND YOU HAVE DOUBLE CHECKED YOUR SETTINGS THEN GO TO THE SKYWATCHER WEBSITE AND fLASH THE HANDSET.

Not if it is a Celestron Nexstar.

Peter

[aanickmac]

thanks for all your advice. its looking clear tonight so im going to give it another go and see what i can achieve. im going to double check the settings but think i had them correct. i'll let you know if i sort it and what it was.

[Slangers]

This is a common issue. The usual problems are:

Date is entered in US format (MM-DD-YY)

Time entered incorrectly.

Location entered incorrectly.

Tripod not absolutely level.

You can pretty much guarantee that one of these will explain your problem. Given that your scope is slewing down to the ground it must be something way off, in which case the date is what I am betting on.

The suggestion to do a one star align and move on from there won't work if the scope thinks it is working on a different date or in the wrong location.

[cervesca]

Last time I used mine at Easter I put the tube on facing the wrong direction - I also didnt have both sets of marks aligned (which I also did when I first got it as the one on the Dec axis was hidden).

[Neil McRae]

I have exactly the same problem and reported it on this forum and had everything set up perfectly but it did not help. I believe it is a synscan problem. This has led me to getting EQMOD + Stellarium Scope and controlling from my laptop as it was driving me insane. Sorry I cannot help but at least you know you are not on your own. Maybe if a rep from Synscan reads these articles he can help. On my Celestron scope I have no problems. Star alignment is really easy.

Neil

[Cornelius Varley]

I have exactly the same problem and reported it on this forum and had everything set up perfectly but it did not help. I believe it is a synscan problem. This has led me to getting EQMOD + Stellarium Scope and controlling from my laptop as it was driving me insane. Sorry I cannot help but at least you know you are not on your own. Maybe if a rep from Synscan reads these articles he can help. On my Celestron scope I have no problems. Star alignment is really easy.

Neil

It is a Celestron mount, not a Skywatcher Synscan.

Peter

[Skiddins]

Out of interest, how much use are the GPS units for Celestrons and Skywatchers?

I understand you would no longer have to enter your location and time etc yet still have to star align.

Is the lack of having to input the time and dates etc the only benefit or does it make them more accurate?

Skiddins

[valleyman]

My Mistake, saw Skywatcher and did not look at the mount.

But you can reflash at the Celestron website as well

Downloads / Celestron.com

[StevieDvd]

I had issues with a Celestron NexStar handset (some of the menus were garbled) so I did a reflash which solved the problem.

The NexStar software programs have a GPS utility which will let you set the location date/time etc via your pc/laptop if you have a usb or bluetooth GPS mouse, much cheaper than a dedicated astro standalone gps. To be honest though once you have it set properly a few times you will likely stop using the GPS (unless you are very mobile with your setup and need co-ordinates of loads of places).

[Slangers]

I have the Celestron GPS and so life is very easy for me. I just get the scope out, make sure that is level and I'm off.

[carastro]

I had a CG5 GT until very recently and sometimes had this strange slew to alignment star problem (and pointing at Australia!!). In my case it had often followed an obstacle getting in the way and the mount getting stuck (like those sticking out motor housings), or telescope colliding with pier plate when imaging up high.

In despair I re-set to Factory settings (which means you need to put in your location again) and this did the trick and also made GOTO and slew to alignment star more accurate). I had this happen on several ocasions and each time I did a Restore to Factory settings and it was OK again.

If you've checked all your input settings are OK I would give this a go. I also advised a couple of other people to do this with similar problems and it worked for them too.

Carole