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Newbie - help appreciated!

Flyboy

By Flyboy
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Flyboy

Flyboy

Posted
Posted

Hi all,

It strikes me that there's a huge amount of expertise to draw on within the membership - I only hope someone can help me out!

Just got a Skywatcher 102 AZ GoTo refractor.

Despite repeatedly trying to set up according to the manual, I'm having big problems. I've got the scope perfectly level, done the lat/long (degrees, minutes) sorted the time etc and despite my best efforts failed to get the alignment sorted, whichever method (brightest/two-star) I use.

Tonight I tried it yet again - after attempting brightest star (vega) I've selected polaris as the second star. The scope slews (and even eyeballing it is at least 10 degrees in azimuth out!). According to the manual I should now be able to use the direction keys to adjust the secondary alignment but the scope fails to move. Scrolling through then announces "alignment succesful', when clearly it is not!

Is there something I'm missing or is the system prone to major errors. I'd really appreciate some help - this is my fifth night trying to get it working and I'm losing the will to persevere :-)

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Pauly

Pauly

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Hi Flyboy, welcome aboard. I'm unfamiliar with your mount, but using my equitorial mount, the first job is to align the mount with north. Is this step necessary with yours? I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will chip in soon. You will find bags of advice here. I had similar issues when I first started with a goto. Don't worry, you'll get there.

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damnut

damnut

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Hi Flyboy,

Welcome to SGL, echo comments above also on my goto (not skywatcher) I am advised not to use polaris as an alignment star. Have you set time and lat long correctly, do you have to input hours away (0 at mo) from gmt / utm??.

Cheers

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Flyboy

Flyboy

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Hi Guys,

Thanks for your welcome and encouragement!

I can't rule out the possibility that I've repeatably been a dork, but I think I've got the set up parameters right.

Perhaps as I get more familiar with the sky, I can try setting up my second star with confidence but the main problem seems that the manual movement of the mount to that point is the issue - it could be me or a problem with the software?

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Tinker1947

Tinker1947

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Welcome to SGL, when you go to the second set-up star try pressing the "2 Key" then the "9 Key" this should speed up the movement, also try using a narrow EP after the scope has moved to its first star, that's wide angle to get the star in the middle, then narrow to get it spot on, do the same with the next star...

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Stargazer51N

Stargazer51N

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Hi Flyboy and welcome to SGL.

I don't have the same mount as you but my Celestron SLT mount and hand control looks very similar to it. Make sure you are putting the date the right way round as my mount requires the American format (i.e. MMDDYY) - yours may be the same. Also always use the same movements to finish your alignment in the eyepiece. I finish each alignment using the down and right arrows. The reason I say this is to eliminate play in the gears (backlash) that can lead to alignment errors. Stick with it and you'll get there. Hopefully someone with the same mount as yours will give more specific feedback soon.

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todd8137

todd8137

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hi fly boy not sure about that mount but i no my meade goto is like a baby some times,and does not align or any thing the main problem is getting the mount level and the tube polar align needs to be good.when i do two star align its never bang on you do have to move to the star and i press enter and its usally within a 20mm ep stick at it

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Nosivad

Nosivad

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Hi and welcome. Looking at a photo of your set up in an advert, your hand controller looks very like my celestron controller.. Firstly make sure it is level. Make sure you have your lat and long in correctly. If not you may have the option to choose a nearby large city. For me it was Bordeaux. Remember to put the date in MMDDYY as the americans do. Finally input your time and make sure you are not 1 hour ahead.

On my hand control 9 is the slew rate so I press that and then 8 and this gives me the fastest slew rate, 7 is less quick etc. Centre the object ( I use star align which requires 3 objects) in the finder scope and look in the eyepiece of the telescope. If your finder scope in aligned properly you should see the star in the eyepiece. Press Enter, the display should now say align object. The slew rate should now be much slower so using the arrow keys centre the object in the eyepiece and then press align. Do this for another 2 objects eg Jupiter etc but remember to change your slew rate for each new object. After the 3 have been aligned it takes a few seconds to say "successful".

On Sunday with my celestron I saw 18 Messier and 3 NGC objects in an hour and a half. Without a computerised mount I would be lucky to have found half of them!

Hope this helps. Good luck.

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Nosivad

Nosivad

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Hi, I've found a picture of your hand controller and it is not quite the same as my celestron. You do have an enter key which maybe needs to be used twice and also a rate key (number 2). It took me a while to get the hang of it but now I can be set up in a few minutes. It takes longer 'cos I keep needing to remove the reading glasses to observe then replace them to read the display!! Ah old age is great! Have a look at this website.

http://www.beevo.com/Downloads/Synscan%20V3.pdf

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