Another first light

[AlanCrossley]

At last after waiting 3 weeks since I became the proud owner of a new Celestron C8-SGT a clear night, no books to mark, no parents evening so out into the backyard, set up in 20 mins ( I have practised in daylight). Then discovered setting up the GOTO was not going to be as easy as I thought, followed the manual ( I have read it honest) found the scope was a long way out in finding the stars it used to set up eventually asked it to find Jupiter some way of but managed to get in the scope excellent views. Then realised I need a dew tube as the image lost its quality.

might sound like a moan but I did enjoy my self I realise where I could be going wrong but I cannot wait for another night and roll on retirement (10 weeks not that I am counting!).

I would welcome any advice on using my scope. alan

[Qualia]

Sounds like a great night, Alan and congratulations on owning such a beautiful instrument of investigation and joy. I am aware of a number of users here of the C8 and I'm sure some of them will see your OP and reply. Anyway, look forward to more reports.

[swamp thing]

Hi Alan

I see you've encountered the Cats nemesis.........dew. Cats are unfortunately prone to dewing up. Many owners I know have both dew shields and heater strips as a belt and braces job on their Cats.

Nothing brings an observing session to a soggy miserable halt faster than a dewed up scope. Keep the dew at bay = happy astronomer

[M4lcs67]

I own a C9.25 and invested in a dew sheild and also heatertape/controller. My first real use of the heatertape was last night. Worked a treat. All the optics were completely fog free. Cannot exactly say the same for the atmosphere though. Started out ok, but as the evening wore on the high altitude cloud rolled in and put the skids on my session, so at about 8pm I brought it all back in. We live to fight another day....

[skir]

I've found with the Goto there is a certain quite steep learning curve. It took me 3 or 4 sessions to iron out all the bugs in my setup and develop a routine for getting everything setup correctly. I do the following now:-

Take the mount out on its own without weights or scope attached and get it level. Next i use a compass to get the front tripod leg roughly aligned with north. Then I use the polar scope to align the mount to polaris. Then get the weights and scope onto the mount and check the setup is balanced. Initially I did a solar system align on Jupiter as that was easiest. But now I know my way round the sky a bit better I use a two star alignment and add another star for further calibration, this gives much more accurate GOTO performance. I also use the hibernate mode so the mount remembers the previous alignment and I just have to put the date and time in. Remember the date has to be input in American style so mm/dd/yy. Time is quite critical, I use a tablet outdoors and Google atomic time. This gives me very accurate time to enter to the mount.

You may want to get a red dot finder of some type as this makes finding and lining up on stars much easier. So something like a telrad or a Rigel quick finder. I tend to use my telrad first, follow this up with the finder (get a right angled corrected image finder to help here, much easier to use than a standard finder) and then move to the eye piece. Hth.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

[M4lcs67]

Hey skir,

Just been reading your post. Some very helpful tips you have given. I like the idea of the atomic ttime thing. I posted the other day about finding true north and a few people gave some tips, but do you find that just using a compass is sufficient? Just as a matter of interest. Which two stars do you use for alignment? I use my smartphone with Googlesky out in the garden as a way of quickly identifying targets.

[skir]

Hey skir,

Just been reading your post. Some very helpful tips you have given. I like the idea of the atomic ttime thing. I posted the other day about finding true north and a few people gave some tips, but do you find that just using a compass is sufficient? Just as a matter of interest. Which two stars do you use for alignment? I use my smartphone with Googlesky out in the garden as a way of quickly identifying targets.

Hi Malc, I tend to use anything that is clearly visible and easily identifiable. I prefer 2 of them to be on either side of the meridian if possible to make Goto more precise. Obviously the magnetic pole is a bit off true north, but it is good enough for me to then use the polar scope and the alt and az adjustments to get polaris properly lined up.

I'm using my nexus 7 for scope control and identifying stars properly with sky safari pro. Last alignment I used Aldebaran, Betelgeuse and denebola I think. Gotos were then putting everything in the fov of a 32mm plossl, a few things were in the centre of fov too.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

[AlanCrossley]

Hi Skir, thanks for your advice it has given me food for thought, interested to see you have just used a solar alignment something I have not tried. I do use a spirit level and compass to arrange the tripod, not sure everything is correctly balanced must try again.

I was aware that dew could be a problem but not how quick it can spoil a session, will be investing in suitable prevention. Shame we we cannot do anything about controlling the weather?

Again overwhelmed by the quick helpful responses this site produces, the friendliest site I have used.

Will get clear skies tonight, lovely afternoon at the moment. Alan

[skir]

You're welcome Alan. I have received a lot of very good advice on here myself so it is nice to be able to offer some back. I haven't used solar alignment I align to polaris and the north celestial pole using a polar scope I have built into the mount.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

[M4lcs67]

Yeah. I also use a spirit level on the tripod, then once I have that sorted I put the mount on. I know the CG5 has a built-in bubble level, but is isn't accurate. Bought a small spirit level from a diy shop and keep it in one of my boxes. I just keep moving it around in various places on the top plate until everything is reading level.

[skir]

I must have been lucky with my I in built spirit level as it is accurate. I'd read of its inaccuracy so used a normal spirit level and then noticed the in built one was right too.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2