Can't understand the GoTo approach and Alignment on 127 SLT GoTo,Help needed

[westel]

Hi again guys,i have a problem with alignment of GoTo system of my scope celestron 127 SLT,i have tried skyalign and it seems that i cannot align it,every time it says align failed.

I have tried auto two stars fail again...

My only success was on 1-star,and that is not accurate,yes the GoTo was going to the direction i wanted,but it misses the object A LOT....

Now i have read that much important is how you set up the scope to the mount and it seems i can't understand that balancing of "FRONT AND HEAVY" or "BACK AND HEAVY" what is that ???i set up the scope in the middle of the fork...

Thus that affect the scope balancing or goto systems ?

How should i set up/balance the OTA on the mount ??

My tripod is properly set up with the bubble in the middle...

I am not using any cameras or stuff...i use only star diagonal,finder and a simple eyepiece....

First i center the first star in the finder then center it in the eyepiece,i defocus the star until it seems like a donut

P.S my finder scope is properly align with the scope and the eyepiece,tested several times...

i run it on external power,so i am not using batteries,there's a plenty of power.

Thanks

[aces101st]

have u tryed to put it back to factory settings to erase it might work if u do that had to do it a few times with my 127 cassigrain maksutov skywatcher......worth a try if u do that.......

[brantuk]

A common cause is incorrect entry of site and date/time details. Remember to use US format for dates mm/dd/yy and make sure DST is set properly for the time of year. Check your latitude on google or use this site: http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html

Hope that helps

[westel]

have u tryed to put it back to factory settings to erase it might work if u do that had to do it a few times with my 127 cassigrain maksutov skywatcher......worth a try if u do that.......

Nop i haven't tried that but tonight i will,of course if it's not raining

A common cause is incorrect entry of site and date/time details. Remember to use US format for dates mm/dd/yy and make sure DST is set properly for the time of year. Check your latitude on google or use this site: http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html

Hope that helps

Thanks but i have entered correct time and date i was paying attention to that part most and latitude longitude are correctly entered from my iphone compass which shows me exactly what the GoTo is looking for

[westel]

But what about that FRONT and HEAVY or BACK and HEAVY stuff ??

[brantuk]

The only other thing I can suggest at this time is that you double check you are doing the "two star auto align" correctly. It won't slew to the first object - you have to do that manually - so you need to be 100% sure of your object when centering it up in finder and eyepiece. If you are new to this goto system and/or astronomy then it is very easy to make a mistake.

Phone apps are great but they aren't allways totally reliable (not for aligning scopes at least). It's really down to yourself to actually know what you are looking at when choosing an object to align on - and that depends on a knowledge of the sky - a pair of binocs is useful for this to help you identify the object position. It's best to know two or three objects that you can see and use for aligning.

[brantuk]

I don't see a reference to "front or back heavy" in the manual. Generally it is best to ensure even balance. Sometimes for imaging with equatorial mounts it is preferable to have east or west very slightly heavy to ensure tracking motor cogs are engaged consistently depending on which side of the sky is being used. But an AZ mount should ideally be as near to evenly balanced as possible