Heq5 goto setup problems

[Nicho]

Hi all I've recently purchased a heq5pro mount I'm a relative novice when I comes to stargazing but have been enjoying looking up for the last year on my celestron astromaster 130 .

I've gone through the whole setup of polar aligment with my new mount which I've as far as I can tell have set up correctly using astro baby's guide. All went well aligning the mount this evening and then turned on my goto synscan handset .

Mount is in the start position .

All my star alignments are a mile out there not even close 20 degrees or so out would it be something to do with my inputs I've put into the synscan ?

If someone could clarify I've done this right I would be most grateful .

Location 000 01'w 50 52. ' n

Set time zone +00:00

date:mm/dd/yyyy 01/19/2012

Enter time 20:47

Daylight saving No

Polaris HA=02:10

clock=04:54

If this is imputed in correctly where should I look next ?

Nick

[malc-c]

Nick,

You've seem to of covered most of the normal pit falls of entering the date in the wrong format or setting the time zone wrong. The only thing I can think of is have you entered the location in HH:MM:SS and not in decimal format ?

[malc-c]

According to my findings Whitely in Hampshire is

Latitude:N 50° 52' 51.3804"

Longitude:W 1° 14' 26.448"

So try

Latitude:N 50° 52' 51"

Longitude:W 1° 14' 26"

For a more precise reading enter your postcode and address on this site Find Latitude and Longitude

[Nicho]

Thx for the quick response will try that now

[Cornelius Varley]

I think your coordinates are incorrect. Whiteley Hampshire is 001 14W 50 52N. Lat - Long Finder: This page helps you find Latitude and Longitude enter your town into the box on the right hand side of the screen (Whiteley UK) and the map will centre on that location. You can zoom in and pan around until your exact location is in the centre of the map. Then you can read off the longitude and latitude in degrees and minutes in the readout below the map.

Peter

[Nicho]

Well tryed the new setting still not alot of luck . End up setting my first star to betelguse and taking it off the clutch and slewing it round by hand till i had the star in my sights and renaged the motor from there the second and third stars where only slightly out. Took a few 40 second + shots of orion neb and there was no star movment so that should mean the polar is aligned ok.

One thing i did notice when my mount is in the start position should i be able to see polaris through my telescope ? because i couldnt see it !

[mallorcasaint]

It is the mount that is aligned with polaris not the scope. Your Long and lat were defo in wrongly. It must be in degrees and mins and secs not decimal.

[malc-c]

The goto will assume that the scope is in the default home position when power is applied. Watch the mount setup videos on the AstronomyShed channel astronomyshed's Channel - YouTube

Should help

[billhinge]

Hi all I've recently purchased a heq5pro mount I'm a relative novice when I comes to stargazing but have been enjoying looking up for the last year on my celestron astromaster 130 .

I've gone through the whole setup of polar aligment with my new mount which I've as far as I can tell have set up correctly using astro baby's guide. All went well aligning the mount this evening and then turned on my goto synscan handset .

Mount is in the start position .

All my star alignments are a mile out there not even close 20 degrees or so out would it be something to do with my inputs I've put into the synscan ?

If someone could clarify I've done this right I would be most grateful .

Location 000 01'w 50 52. ' n

Set time zone +00:00

date:mm/dd/yyyy 01/19/2012

Enter time 20:47

Daylight saving No

Polaris HA=02:10

clock=04:54

If this is imputed in correctly where should I look next ?

Nick

Hi

I had similar problems to you about a month ago using my CG5 ASGT but I sorted it now. I don't know if set up is similar to yours but I'll explain how I fixed it just in case.

1 - I previously had the polar axis roughly pointing north but only roughly. This time I use the polar scope plus alt-azimouth adjustment bolts to centre Polaris in polar scope - tripod is already level

2- From there I centre polaris in telescope eyepiece using opportunity to make sure eyepiece is focused correctly. I then adjust the finder to centre the finder on Polaris - makes it much easier to do alignment if telescope and finder are pointing in the same direction!

3 - Do 2 star alignment, chosen star should be in finder view now, because the finder and tube are now aligned it should be a simple matter of lining up the cross hairs etc then centring in telescope. (make sure the spinner on goto stops first because it can be moving invisibly slowly). I was close enough at this stage to ignore the finder and do the alignment directly in the telescope but at least the finder shows that you are using the correct star - not always easy to confirm!

I did 4 calibration stars - e.g. well known ones

If you align and calibrate accurately it seems to work reasonably well for me - I'll do the polar calibration as well next time but I was too busy enjoying myself the last time I never got around to it

(tip the replacement astro development bolts make alt azimuth adjustment much easier)

As I say that was the CG5 but I think setting the finder and initial due north orientation made a huge difference to me at least

hope it helps

Steve