First light Nexstar 130SLT

[legion48]

The box arrived Thursday morning, which was pretty good as I had only ordered it from David Hinds at about 17:00 Tuesday evening.

On opening the box I was pleasantly surprised to find the mount and tripod already attached. It just remained for me to attach the red dot finder to the OTA and the OTA to the mount. This was simplicity itself, just slide the dovetail into its holder, tighten it up and viola, all done. 10 minutes max. Oh yes, and 5 seconds to plug in the handset.

Carrying the whole setup out to the garden was a joy. I don’t know how much it weighs but its got to be at least half the weight of my Skywatcher 130PM. No back problems with this baby and with the tripod unextended the legs fit comfortably through doorways, a small thing but handy.

I set up in the garden, this was about 18:30, way before sunset, but I was desperate to try the goto out and the moon was visible, so why not? I turned the handset on and was prompted to input my location and local time. I used long/lat cords rather than the nearest city as I felt this would result in more accurate goto. It only took 2 or three minutes to enter the data and I found out later that the location data is remember after the handset is powered off, unlike the local time which needs to be entered again after a power down of greater than a few minutes or I imaging the goto accuracy will suffer.

I choose to use “Solar System” align and chose the moon from the list, as it was all that was visible. I was prompted to use the directional keys to centre the moon in the red dot finder scope and then press enter. Once I had centred the moon on the red dot and pressed enter I was prompted to centre the moon in the eyepiece. Having done this, although it wasn’t far off being centred anyway, I pressed the “Align” button and up came the message “Alignment Successful”. Wow, I thought, that was easy. It couldn’t have taken more than a minute or so.

After observing the moon for a while with the supplied eyepieces – no better or worse than most eyepieces that come with cheaper scopes – and my eyepieces and Celestron Ultima x2 barlow, I must say I was quite pleased with the views. Very sharp, crisp and pretty bright. The focusor was no better or worse than expected and will probably be replaced eventually. The tracking was superb, the moon stayed centred for the 20 minutes or so I observed it.

I wanted to observe Venus and instinctively reached for my bino’s, fully prepared to go through the lengthy process of trying to find V in the bright early evening sky. It took a few seconds to remember that I now have a goto! I scrolled to Venus on the handset, hit Enter and the scope started slewing at quite a respectable speed, although a bit louder than I anticipated. As it slowed down I put my eye to the eyepiece and sure enough Venus came into the field of view and slowly became centred. Again, the views were good and the tracking excellent.

I spent 30 minute going backwards and forwards between the moon and Venus, more than I needed to in all honesty, just because I could. I fear I’ve put a couple of week’s worth of wear into the gears in that 30 minutes. Eventually I pulled myself together and turned it off while I waited for what passes for darkness at this time of year.

22:00 and I’m out again, but it’s starting to cloud up. I wanted to try and see some globs and maybe M57 so this time I did a 2 star align. I planned on using Arcturus and Vega but Vega wasn’t in the list of stars available – more on this later- so I ended up just doing a one star align on Arcturus, as the clouds were really beginning to gather by now and I didn’t think I had much more than 15 mins of clear sky left.

After alignment I tried to goto M57 but got a message on the handset, “Object out of range” or something like that. It turns out that Skyalign won’t goto an object if its elevation may mean the OTA fouls the tripod. This explained why Vega wasn’t in the list of alignment stars, the software takes out the unsuitable ones. Very clever. About this time the handset suddenly turned itself off. It appears that the AC adapter had been unseated what with all the slewing around. This happened a few more times and I had to resort to taping it to the mount, which seemed to work. By now I only had a small patch of clear sky off to the west so I fired up Celestrons “The Sky” to see what may be there. M53 looked like a target and once entered into the handset the goto duly obliged and M53 was very nearly centred in the eyepiece. Although it looked like what you would expect from a 5 inch scope from a light polluted garden, the point is that the goto found it which is more than I’ve been able to do in the last 6 months!

Given that my use of the Nexstar 130SLT has been limited thus far, I am very pleased with the scope. The OTA is adequate, the mount, goto and tracking are excellent and the Skyalign software is a breeze to use and it really works.

[legion48]

Nice one, thanks Adam.

[geppetto]

Nice report mate, sounds a very usefull bit of kit 8)

It appears that the AC adapter had been unseated what with all the slewing around

Pet hate alert

Why oh why do scope manufacturers use those silly kids toy plugs and sockets :?

There are many high quality but cheap alternatives that would be more suitable..

[legion48]

Oh well, at least Adams "fix" worked. I've tried it and it does the job. Thanks again Adam.

[luke_1983uk8]

legion48,

ive just started to use my scope after a hecktic last few weeks, and found viewing the moon amazing!

but its when i want to view other objects in the sky via the GOTO system the problems start.

the problems im having are, entering the long/lat cords? cant find it anywhere in the setup menu.

and when i align the object in the sky, say the moon for example, do i use the red dot finder of the eye piece, on the goto display it states the eyepeice, but i have found the 2 differ slightly, when the moon is positioned perfectly in the eyepeice, the moons position in the red dot finder is to the left and up, rather then being a direct match with the red dot?

anyhelp would be great, i would really appreciate it

thanks luke

[legion48]

legion48,

ive just started to use my scope after a hecktic last few weeks, and found viewing the moon amazing!

but its when i want to view other objects in the sky via the GOTO system the problems start.

the problems im having are, entering the long/lat cords? cant find it anywhere in the setup menu.

and when i align the object in the sky, say the moon for example, do i use the red dot finder of the eye piece, on the goto display it states the eyepeice, but i have found the 2 differ slightly, when the moon is positioned perfectly in the eyepeice, the moons position in the red dot finder is to the left and up, rather then being a direct match with the red dot?

anyhelp would be great, i would really appreciate it

thanks luke

Hi Luke, great scope isn't it?

When you do your alignment, that's when you can enter or change your Lat/Long cords. The handset will display a set of cords but if these are incorrect, just press UNDO, and you will be able to enter the correct cords. The hand controller will remember them so you do not have to enter them every time. If you don't know your precise cords then I would download Google Earth and enter your postcode into the progam:

http://earth.google.com/#utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-emea-uk-google&utm_medium=ha&utm_term=google%20earth

When doing your alignment, center the object in the eyepiece, not the red dot finder. If the red dot finder is not pointing at the object when it is centered in the eyepiece this will not have any effect on your alignment, but it will effect your ability to find stuff when looking around without the goto. It's best to have the red dot finder pointing at what you see in the eyepiece.

Here's a few sites that are a must for you bookmarks:

Cloudy Nights Nexstar specific forum: http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php/Cat/0/Board/nexstar

Nexstar Resourse Site: http://www.nexstarsite.com/

130SLT Online User Manual: http://www.telescopes.com/images/pdf/CELE026.pdf

I'm not very good at explaining stuff, but I hope this helped.

[gary1968]

Good report L48. nice to see someone else getting on well with a Nexstar. They are a breeze to use as long as they get enough power.

Gary

[luke_1983uk8]

Hi Luke, great scope isn't it?

When you do your alignment, that's when you can enter or change your Lat/Long cords. The handset will display a set of cords but if these are incorrect, just press UNDO, and you will be able to enter the correct cords. The hand controller will remember them so you do not have to enter them every time. If you don't know your precise cords then I would download Google Earth and enter your postcode into the progam:

http://earth.google.com/#utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-emea-uk-google&utm_medium=ha&utm_term=google%20earth

When doing your alignment, center the object in the eyepiece, not the red dot finder. If the red dot finder is not pointing at the object when it is centered in the eyepiece this will not have any effect on your alignment, but it will effect your ability to find stuff when looking around without the goto. It's best to have the red dot finder pointing at what you see in the eyepiece.

Here's a few sites that are a must for you bookmarks:

Cloudy Nights Nexstar specific forum: http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php/Cat/0/Board/nexstar

Nexstar Resourse Site: http://www.nexstarsite.com/

130SLT Online User Manual: http://www.telescopes.com/images/pdf/CELE026.pdf

I'm not very good at explaining stuff, but I hope this helped.

legion48, thanks alot!

i printed out all you said and will be using it tonight when i use my scope.

thanks for the great advice and the useful links.

that was exactly what i was after, and cheers for the original review, it definently helped me sway my choice to this scope

thanks again

luke

[John Guard]

Hi Guys,

Just on the side lines as I am trying to learn about this hobby.

You may already know this but, another way to find your Lat/Lon coordinates is to goto -

www.streetmap.co.uk -

enter your post code -

when the map is displayed -

goto the bottom of the page ,after the adverts -

click on "Click here to covert/measure Coordinates" -

it wil then display the Lat/Lon of your post code as well as the OS coordinates.

Regards John.