GoTo or Ga-ga

[Cloudwatcher]

The GoTo on the HEQ5 seemed to have a mind of it's own the other night. After usual set up, targets appeared

near the edge of the FOV so I assumed the rough polar alignment has been a bit rougher than usual.

Not a big deal as requested object was still visable and could be centred in the eyepiece. However, when Saturn was entered on the hand set as the next objectI was told 'Below Horizon'! Funny, I thought.. as the last object had been next door in Leo!

Anyway, having given the little devil a smack across it's buttons, all is sorted and I got to thinking it might be fun to see if

any of you Loungers would like to guess the cause of the misbehaviour.

The one to post the first correct answer before midnight tomorrow gets to call themselves 'Lord High Technocrat' for the day.

Author of the most amusing/outrageous guess can assume the title of 'Jester Extraordinaire'

Judges' decision is not necessarily final, will listen to all reasoned arguments and of course accept huge bribes!!

[GazOC]

Wrong hemisphere?

[Whippy]

Missed out the daylight savings bit? When I first got my C8N, I spent two hours entering in the wrong date format, DD/MM/YYYY instead of MM/DD/YYYY.. oh was my face red.. :withstupid:

[GazOC]

Missed out the daylight savings bit? When I first got my C8N, I spent two hours entering in the wrong date format, DD/MM/YYYY instead of MM/DD/YYYY.. oh was my face red.. :withstupid:

Done it!

[geoff_k]

Happened to me on a couple of occasions. Apart from the suggestions of double checking your settings nothing to do but swear profusely and forget about Go-to or give up for the night. Go-to systems are like teenagers, they have their moments.

I don't know if you've had the system freeze yet and refuse to go-to at all which has also happened to me.

Of course, you could take out the little pixie that Skywatcher put inside the system and give him a damn good kicking. That always works.

Geoff

[barkis]

Got to be a slipping clutch. I have a jesters cap, do I put it on now?

Ron.

[stargazer1980]

Or is that meant to be a slipping CRUTCH lol sorry had to say that!

[Astroman]

Or is that meant to be a slipping CRUTCH lol sorry had to say that!

My thoughts, exactly. Star hopping hardly ever points below the horizon. 8)

[The Warthog]

Wrong year?

I think goto is an excellent idea. I want one.

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Tell us soon CW, I never get planets (or even the moon) to work with goto on the HEQ5 or EQ6 mounts. Now that I know that I've been dumb I need to know what I did wrong.

Capyain Chaos

[James]

I've had similar problems by mixing up Castor and Pollux... was that it?

James

[blinky]

Were you maybe looking for Jupiter as opposed to Saturn?

[Cloudwatcher]

One near miss on the Techno front so far! Keep them coming.

Oh and James, do tell us what you got when you mixed Castor and Pollux. Wasn't that high class Italian food item

'Pasto-lux', by chance?

[themos]

entered wrong year for the time?

It's got to be the year because it got a planet wrong but other things almost right. Say the FOV is 50', the error on non-planets was half that, 25'. My planetarium software moves stars about 40' between 2007 and 2008 (going a year back to 2006, a star moved 13'). Close enough.

Ah, but one year either way still puts Saturn up in the sky.

Could it be that he asked for "Saturn Nebula" instead?

[Helen]

am instead of pm??

[James]

One near miss on the Techno front so far! Keep them coming.

Oh and James, do tell us what you got when you mixed Castor and Pollux. Wasn't that high class Italian food item

'Pasto-lux', by chance?

:oops: Ahem, no food unfortunately just a bit of a red face.

I second the suggestion on wrong year...

[Cloudwatcher]

Getting hotter Techno wise! Not a lot from the Jesters as yet. I think the 'Kicking the Pixie" entry must be ahead here!

I mean,kicking Pixies is pretty outrageous by any standard!! Pick on someone your own size, why don't you! :shock:

Unless your a Disc Worlder. Then of course it's fine but watch out for the Species Equality Brigade!

[James]

Am I alone in not understanding a word of what Cloudwatcher has posted? Is it because I've never read a Terry Pratchett novel? :?

[Whippy]

I'm also one of the 'wha?' brigade mate :?.

[Cloudwatcher]

Apologies to Maccers and all other non-Pratchett fans. (Give him a try...to know is to love.)

[James]

(Give him a try...to know is to love.)

Before I do that I want to know what you did wrong to screw up your goto's...!

[daz]

I'll go for Lat and Long the wrong way round

[mark.of.andromeda]

how about you was abducted by aliens they whisked you off to a parallel universe where by east was west north was south up was down so when you set your goto for saturn it was below the horizon

ok I'm new at this so excuse my stupidness

i did try and post this earlier but the site went ga ga on me not only the gotos that go ga ga

[Cloudwatcher]

I can't stay up till the midnight hour. So, the answer is......TIME & MONTH.

Some near misses but no bullseye from the Technocrats.

Might have to have a play off between geoff k's Pixies & mark of andromeda's Alians

for the Jester title.

[Whippy]

Missed out the daylight savings bit? When I first got my C8N, I spent two hours entering in the wrong date format, DD/MM/YYYY instead of MM/DD/YYYY.. oh was my face red.. :withstupid:

Ahem. I claim my five pounds.