2 hours wasted

[Ant F]

ive spent almost 2 hours tonight trying to align my mount to polaris and i failed every time. didnt even get close.  that view finder thing on the bottom of my cg5gt dont work i swear. i couldnt see any stars and all the caps were removed. i shon a torch downand could see that but not polaris. any idea where im going wrong. i also tried 2 star alignment and tried to maybe sync those but it took 20 mins to slew it was that slow.  i managed to get just vega in my sights which it tracked well but when i went to capella and jupiter thats just came up its miles off.

[RikM]

I don't know the Celestron mounts but the polarscopes on the skywatchers are focusable if you turn the eyepiece end. Could you have simply been out of focus? The other thing is that I find it really easy to 'miss' polaris altogether if I set up away from home. If it is safe to do do so, a quick zap up through the polar scope with a green laser pointer should put you more or less on target.

[Ant F]

i tried that twiddling the knob thingy. i have ran outta ideas, i never had any problems with my good old eq3 mount i used to use

[gkec]

Also it sounds like you were running low on power.  Were you running from a battery pack?

[Ant F]

Also it sounds like you were running low on power.  Were you running from a battery pack?

yesss its been freshly charged, i charge the batterys every night to keep topped up

[RikM]

Have a look through it in the day time so see what the scope is like optically. If it seems okay then probably best to look up your local astro society and see if someone can help you get it set up and sorted. http://fedastro.org.uk/fas/members/

[Ant F]

ive seen in it before i can see the big dipper and a few other stars. 

[carastro]

I know this is probably a stupid question, but did you have the Dec axis fully rotated so you can actually see through the polarscope?  I know you shone the torch down it but maybe that somehow got through.

The mount shouldn't be slewing as slowly as that, there must be something wrong with your power source, or the mount itself.

Carole

[Ant F]

i had all the lines on index and i set my latitude etc to what its spose to be but nothing   isnt there any videos or other ways to do this without going to polaris all the time

[gkec]

i had all the lines on index and i set my latitude etc to what its spose to be but nothing   isnt there any videos or other ways to do this without going to polaris all the time

If you have the index lines marked up you can't see through the polar scope.  You have to set it so you can see through the polar scope, line it up using the polar scope and then set it to the index marks. 

Even without the polar scope you should be able to align the scope using the finder scope with the index lines lined up.

[Ant F]

ok the index is all lined up and im looking through the polar scope but its black. i can shine a torch above it and see it fine and the layout of the stars etc on the guide thing.  but im facing north and trying to find polaris but i cant see it even tho it looks level. 

i have to keep moving the tripod about to get any movement.

[allcart]

Line up both the index marks Ant and stick your finger down the hole. You will feel an obstruction. Now rotate the dec axis and stick your finger down the hole. It should go right in now.

Now look through the polar scope and you will see stars. I find that a small torch shone at an angle across the top of the hole will illuminate the polarscope star drawing and let you see the real ploaris as well but you do need to find the right angle for the torch. When you have aligned with polaris, that is when you align both index marks again and start your star align routine.

[allcart]

Just as a side note, are you sure there is a polarscope in the mount. When I got my CG5 there was no actual polarscope installed and I had to buy one and put it in myself.

[tdnicholls]

I don't use the polar scope as I can't actually see Polaris, I do a 2 start align and 4 calibration stars then a polar align on star low in the south.

This seems to work well for me though a little time consuming but normally around. 30mins to get setup. Never know if I should run an align again after polar aligning though.

[allcart]

Did you get sorted Ant???

A good look and a quick test in daylight might reveal any problem.

[Ant F]

tried the 2 star thing, i got vega and the other i wanted capella wasnt actually on it. i had other stars that were either hidden by trees or some other object like houses. only real view i have is nw to ne and south the other areas are obscured by things. but i have no light pollution thats bad where i am.  half the stars on the handset i never heard of so wouldnt know if i hit them or not. then when its slewed to the stars which is light speed and not as loud as ppl claim to be. i press the buttons and it moves at snail pace 

[Ant F]

think i need to set my scope up for slewing, i never got a manual with it coz it was second hand

[Ant F]

my plan is to get a concrete ground put down where my legs on my mount will slip into so i dont have to polar align each time

[allcart]

Ok. But did you sort the polarscope out. Did you finally get your polar alignment done before you did your star align..

There is a button on the lower right side of handset called motor speed. When you have finished the aligning routine, press this button once and then press a number for slew speed. I found 5 to be quiet and not too fast to control. Experiment with it. The previous owner may have had the motor speed set to a very low number.

[allcart]

Concret pad or similar is a good idea. I spent a few hours one night just getting the polar alignment accurate and then marked the leg spots on the patio so that I could put the scope back on the marks each time I used it.

[allcart]

If you go to the Celestron website you should be able to download a manual for the mount and handset.

[Ant F]

no i gave up i got so cold i couldnt walk right lol  suffering from ear infection loses ya balance and im next to my pond which is deep lol.

i keep my stuff in my shed so its at the tempature i need when i get it set up. they say wait dont they for 15 mins + to get ya stuff used to outside temp so this is why its in the shed. 

might get a pallet or something and ancor it down with spikes and then put some markers.

i went and looked at my mount and it was all correct but some reason i couldnt see anything through it. 

i could see though it today tho. i seriously thought i had it near polaris. 

How do i move the mount to get it into view?  im new to all this. maybe my latitude etc was out i dunno, it said on a phone app i was 51.9 Deg so i put that on the mount.

when i slewed to vega i wasnt that far off really but other stars i never heard of so couldnt comment

[Ant F]

dont know if this idea i have would work but what if i used planets to set it up like jupiter? goto jupiter then move the mount once its slewed onto jupiter then go to vega and then check polaris??? 

[allcart]

Approx 51 deg sounds about right for your location. You need to make sure the mount is aligned to north first and level it. Then look for polaris in the polarscope. You can then adjust the lat bolts and nudge the legs round until it is roughly centred in the little circle. That will put you in the right ballpark. Then its a case of fine adjustments to get polaris onto the line of the little circle and follow it. There is a little app called polarfinder you can download which will show you the exact position on the circle line that polaris should be at any time. Polarfinder will show you where polaris should be on the circle line every time you go out, so you can verify your alignment.

I found that once I had done a reasonably accurate mount alignment and marked the spots, then providing I didn't alter the length of the legs on the mount, it was pretty damned close everytime I put it back on the marks.

I found the star align routine quite hard as well, due to not knowing all the stars and having rubbish views. I just kept trying to learn my way around and use the stars I could identify. Stellarium is pretty useful for finding out the star names of what you can see from your location.

[Gonzo]

You might find the following useful http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/176181-polar-alignment-with-an-iphone/ it requires a little bit of DIY, but it does work quite well.