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Incompetent beginner

Alan Conroy

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Alan Conroy

Alan Conroy

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Hi everyone. I am a long term stargazer but only with binculars for the last 15 years or so. About a month ago I got a Celestron 9.25" Advanced GT with an EQ5 Mount. I level the tripod. I place the mount facing North, have set the latitude to 52 degrees and carefully set the alignment marks for both the RA and Dec. This is after balancing the scope as carefully as I can.

I then tried a 2 star align and gave up as the telescope didnt seem to want to go anywhere near stars that I knew. As an example I tried Dubhe and the scope ended up pointing up at around 80 degrees well back from Dubhe. I then tried a solar system align. I knew where Jupiter was. I could see it. This was 1830 hrs on 23 Oct 11 so it was relatively low in the sky.The scope promisingly turned east and then seemed to fall back and ended up pointing high towards the southern sky.

Does this sound like a balancing problem or is there anything else it could be or I am failing to do. Hope someone can help.

THanks

Alan

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umadog

umadog

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And the time and date (for finding planets)...

In addition, with polar aligning one would typically find the NCP through the telescope rather than relying on the latitude marker on the mount. Then again, that would only put you off by a small mount. It wouldn't explain what you're seeing.

Brant, does that mean that if you loosen the clutches the scope looses GoTo alignment?

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MarkSix

MarkSix

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And the time and date (for finding planets)...

In addition, with polar aligning one would typically find the NCP through the telescope rather than relying on the latitude marker on the mount. Then again, that would only put you off by a small mount. It wouldn't explain what you're seeing.

Brant, does that mean that if you loosen the clutches the scope looses GoTo alignment?

If you loosen the clutches the scope will lose its aligment. If you loosen them the encoders built in to the motors will lose track of where the scope is pointed.

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glowjet

glowjet

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One alternative is a Losmandy, once you have aligned the mount you can then Physically point the scope to any target you want, it does have various slew rates, and no matter what target you point the scope at it will continue to track at the set rate, there is also a full GOTO upgrade available, power consumption is a mere 500 milliamps, so the mount will run for long periods of a small battery, this all comes at a price, a basic GM8 will handle a C9.25 for general visual work, but for imaging with the extra weight, as these only take up to 30 lbs, you will need a GM11 :)

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JohnnyD333

JohnnyD333

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I know it sounds silly, but make sure your DEC and RA cords are in their proper inputs. I accidently mixed these up once and it was not good. Also, make sure you have a good power supply, the Cg-5 mount needs at least 2.5 amps (learned this the hard way as well). And if you are just observing, you can simply look through the hole where the polar scope should go and center Polaris through it. This should put you close to the alignment stars when aligning. One last thing, there is a all-star polar align option on the mount which will let you polar align to any star close to the meridian. Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.

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Trull

Trull

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Hmmm... Out of curiosity, are there any equatorial mounts out there which don't do this? It would be nice to be able to flip the clutches in and out and not have to worry about loss of alignment.

I wonder why? you can slew and if you take the OTA out that's fine. Just curious why you would want this?

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barkis

barkis

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The polar axis of your mount, must point to the celestial Pole, or Polaris if you are just an observer.

Once you have the scope aligned to the pole, lock both clutches, the do a two star alignment. If the first star is not in the centre of your eyepiece, do not loosen the clutches to centre it, use the NSEW buttons on the hand controller to centre it. Once centred, press enter, or whichever button you have to to proceed to the nsecond alignment star, (Check your manual). Once you have centred the second alignment star, press the required button to complete the alignment procedure.

You are now able to find any object in the menu you choose, as long as you do not loosen the clutches during your observing session.

Stop referring to yourself as incompetent, you ain't. We all had to learn, and it takes time. so don't worry about it, you'll get there.

Ron.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Alan Conroy

Alan Conroy

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Thank you. I have another question now though. I have an orion planetary webcam. I focus with an eyepiece and get the target, in tonights case Jupiterm centred beautifully. I carefully swap the eyepiece for the webcam. Check that the cam is working but nothing appears on the laptop screen. Totally blank. I have set capture file and set frame rate and file zize and set it to 'preview'. No matter what I do I cannot get Jupiter to appear. If I shine a torch at the webcam the laptop screen imemdiately goes white so there is no problem with light transmission. Any ideas welcome

Alan

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mallorcasaint

mallorcasaint

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The webcam will have a different focus point to your eyepiece so try moving the focusser in and out. Also you may have to centre the target again. I find the best way is to use a wide angle eyepiece and centre the object then swap eyepieces down to about 6mm, repeatedly re-centring then when I attached the webcam the object is usually near the centre but may need re-focussing as I said before.

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Grotemobile

Grotemobile

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Hi, FLO are doing the Celestron C11 XLT for £1595,

which i was thinking of getting, but the problems you

have had is making me think twice.I dont want to spend all night trying to get it to work.How are you

finding thinks now with it. Do you wish you had never

bought it .These big Macs do seem the way to go for

Luner & planetery work.

Steve.

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Alan Conroy

Alan Conroy

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Now that I am able to operate it properly with the clutches locked it is superb. It ket Jupiter centred for about 20 minutes last night before having to be recentred. Tonight I hope to get the first video of Jupiter and its moons. It seems to me to be a well engineered unit and I cant find anything to complain about but then I am a real beginner with a telescope.

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