had scope 5 weeks and not seen a thing!

[nora nooby]

I am just so annoyed that I have only managed to see the moon and then I had to manually do it.

I have a skywatcher 200p and a goto mount cg5 i think it is. It took me ages to work out polar alignment and i am still having issues and this may ne where my problems are starting. last night has been first clear night for at least 2 weeks so was in garden and tried aligning 4 times.

this is what I do . I set up mount with the leg with N on facing N. checked this with a compass away from metal mount so know this is ok. i level mounts legs so that the bubble ic centred. At this point I put the scope into straps and wait for it to get dark.

So i then use the lever so the scope is horizontal and find polaris through polar scope. I can do that bit. Now when i move the lever again to get my scope back the right way its up to me where to lock it off so to speak as there is no centre mark. to my thinking is i have not lined it up 100 % then surely the alignment will be off?

while i was messing about I lined my finder scope to the main scope so am fairly confident thats accurate.

anyway last night thought i would try a variety of measures. First tried a 2 star alignment on stars local to polaris so tried Dubhe and alkaid. My manin problem I think lies here. I can see the stars in the skies quite plainly and can see the big dipper but when i look through the scope or the finder scope for the life of me I just cant see what i see with naked eye as there are more stars then i can see. Does that make sense? anyway i thought i aligned for first star and went to second. same issue here. it accepted my alignment- well it would!

to check I asked it to find the moon but it was sooo way out . I started the process all over again but it was no better as when i asked it to find jupiter it was again so far out. Now I realise that i only did 2 stars and they were in opposite parts of sky but even so i thought it would have got me roughly in the area but it was a very long way out.

I have joined a club and am hoping that if weather is clear on a friday i can go to my clubs dark site but i am getting more and more frustrated. The only thing i took picture of last night was moon which was centred and stayed centred but wasnted to have a look for other things.

if I am doing something glaringly obvious please please tell me!!!

[glowjet]

Although I do not have a GOTO from the many threads I have read in can be most frustrating, I came across this the other night.

http://stargazerslounge.com/blogs/st...ml#comment2680 go into the section on Polar alignment HTH

just checked the link and it does not respond, you will found the information in " Stevebb " blog, sorry about that .

[peonic]

EQ mounts can be a bit of a mare to get your head around the first few times - then it soon becomes second nature.

Get your gear along to a club and I'm sure someone will give you a hand with setup. Failing that, where are you? Maybe there's an SGL member close by who can give you some pointers?

Keep at it, you'll get there! You should have seen the pickle I got in the first few times out (2nd hand scope, eq mount, zero instructions!).

[Rwetherell]

So i then use the lever so the scope is horizontal and find polaris through polar scope. I can do that bit. Now when i move the lever again to get my scope back the right way its up to me where to lock it off so to speak as there is no centre mark. to my thinking is i have not lined it up 100 % then surely the alignment will be off?

if I am doing something glaringly obvious please please tell me!!!

Hi. I've had my GT5GT for only a week but I think this is where you might be going wrong. The scope shouldn't be horizontal when you're polar aligning. There is also a mark on both axis where the scope should be set before you make your first manouvre. Once you're asked to align (whether it be with stars or planets) it will slew in the general direction of, for example, Jupiter (if that's what you've chosen) but the final tweak will have to be made with the direction arrows. When Jupiter is in the middle of my 8mm eyepiece you hit enter and then align. From there you should be able to slew to anything you like with no difficulty.

It might also be worth check to ensure that your polarscope is correctly aligned. Google 'astro baby' and look at her guide for setting up the polar scope.

[basher0010]

Hi. I've had my GT5GT for only a week but I think this is where you might be going wrong. The scope shouldn't be horizontal when you're polar aligning. There is also a mark on both axis where the scope should be set before you make your first manouvre. Once you're asked to align (whether it be with stars or planets) it will slew in the general direction of, for example, Jupiter (if that's what you've chosen) but the final tweak will have to be made with the direction arrows. When Jupiter is in the middle of my 8mm eyepiece you hit enter and then align. From there you should be able to slew to anything you like with no difficulty.

It might also be worth check to ensure that your polarscope is correctly aligned. Google 'astro baby' and look at her guide for setting up the polar scope.

astro baby looks quite easy just the guide ive been looking for and the pics help alot cheers..