SynScan correct location

[Onebitrocket]

Hi i'm having difficulty getting my synscan on my skyto align properly.

I have the skywatcher az goto 130

I think I had the wrong location information but can be sure.

After every time I tried either 2 star or brightest star, the scope would slew to point upwards

i used either vega, Arcturus and mizar for alignment and still each time it still pointed almost directly up

Is there a recommended site for ensuring that I get the correct location details?

Also does the az-goto have a fail safe to prevent the scope from hitting into the tripod?

thanks

[Steve Ward]

Go onto GoogleMaps , centre your location , right click then click on "What's Here" , your co-ordinates will be displayed in decimal , you'll then need to convert this to Degrees , Minutes , Seconds , plenty of online converters ( http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/DDDMMSS-decimal.html )

The other thing to check is the date format you input , this needs to be in US format , ie. mm/dd/yyyy.

[ronin]

Manchester is given as Lat = 53.5 (N) and Long = -2.25 or 2.25 (West).

Think you may enter Long first then Lat - not an uncommon mistake and the scope thinks it is somewhere in N Brazil. That really mucks the alignment up.

Date is US format.

Timezone is 0 and DST is On/Yes.

[JamesF]

Yes, you have to enter longitude first. Which seems very counter-intuitive to me. Then again, US style dates (mm/dd/yyyy) seem very counter-intuitive to me too.

James

[Onebitrocket]

Thanks everyone.

[Cornelius Varley]

This is the site that I use http://www.satsig.ne...long-finder.htm which puts the centre of Manchester at 002 15 W, 53 29N (this is the way the coordinates are entered into the handset).

[Imd]

If you use google earth it can show you the position in degrees, mins, secs without the need to use conversion tools

[Onebitrocket]

Thanks again everyone for the advice. It worked a