Sky Align problems

[MikeCracknell]

Hi there,

Last weekend for my 30th, my wife and family & friends clubbed together and got me a Celestron Nexstar 4SE.

I tried it out Sunday evening, and tried 5 times to get SkyAlign to work - it failed every time. Anyways, after trying a further 12 times last night, I found out that the latitude and longitude were set to somewhere off the California coast, rather than the UK.

I corrected this last night by dong a factory reset, then tonight tried to align it. Success! But when I selected to view Jupiter for example, it was always out, not much at all on the first attempt, but still enough to have to use the sight finder thingy (lol!). 2nd time, it was miles out, 3rd time was pointing in completely the wrong direction and 4th time was the same as the first.

I am so desparate to see Andromeda with my own eyes - the ONLY way I know how to find it is with this video:

Sky Align was not right at all tonight, and I am frustrated with it really, beginners frustration really, as I have no idea where to look for it!

So, can you tell me how to get it aligned better? What way is best? I aligned it off Jupiter and The Plough a few times, then other random stars, but it seemed not to want to show off Andromeda to me tonight

EDIT: I have just read this too: http://stargazerslounge.com/beginners-help-advice/164065-go-tos-beginners.html but tips would still be welcome lol!!!

[faulksy]

use 3 star alignment if it features that. use a wide angle ep then a small focal length once you have the star in the fov, de focus to make the star larger and fill your view upprss alighn, then do the same for the other 2 stars should get it bang on then. hope this helps

[Rapallokid]

Hi Faulsky,

please can you retype the part after "fill your field of view" I may find it usefull.

Many thanks.

Rapallokid.

[Tinker1947]

I think its might mean centre on a wide angle EP then use a narrow angle to get the star spot on, then rinse and repeat on the next 2 stars..worked just fine with my Meade.

[fbassett]

I have a Celestron 90 SLT and like you had no end of trouble using sky align. Then I read a post on here, which i can't find at the moment, which said not to use stars that are close together. I tried this and it works 2 out 3 times, but I have now switched to auto two star align as I find this works all of the time. The down side of auto two star align is you have to know the location of some stars as the handset asks you to point the scope to a particular star. Hope this helps.

[singlespeedman]

a handy tip for synscan controllers for when alignment drops off through the evening (usually if one of the initial settings is just a fraction out as the goto is only as accurate as the settings used) is to get whatever object is slightly out aligned in the EP again and then, press and hold escape for two seconds, you then get to realign on the current object and everything is back without doing the whole setup all aver again.

I have had best results with alignment at home as I have all the settings for location etc down but sometimes when I am off somewhere else the accuracy does drop out and I know it is due to the position being a fraction of a degree out or the time being wrong etc