C6-SGT

[ombos]

Hi all

Well all lot of you will know after all the advice regarding which scope to choose, I picked the C6-SGT. Now remember I'm a noobe, this is my forst scope. And yes I here you cry 'all the gear and no idea' but how did I do setting the mount and scope up and what about viewing etc, read on my friends.

Well when it was all unpacked I had the same feeling I had when I was about 6 and got my first lego set, so to the instruction manual. Is it me or do the yanks try and make such manuals confusing??? so I thought I'd read first and just put together the bit and bobs when I was confident to do so. Now I do believe that an experienced person could do this in around 30mins, but me well around 2 hrs later she was all together and balanced. I did remove the front latitude adjustment screw even before the manual told me to because it was so obvious that if it was left in place and the balance weights were fitted the full weight of everything would make contact with the plastic motor housing, not good, so why dont they tell you to remove it until page 15??? Anyway now please remember I'm a novice, I set the latitude scale to 53 degrees and set the target scope up, I was all ready for the first run, so out it all goes, set the mount to north by compass and ensured it was level with the bubble on the mount. I made some quick drawings of the stars by which I would calabrate the GOTO systems with. OK it's cold but what the hell it's having it!!!!!! I can only view from the east, a little bit from the north east and south east, not a problem, ummmmm read on.

I tried to set my position via long and lat which I got via google earth, but cound'nt get it to enter (user error, I will sort that) so Birmingham was set in the city option. No problems gaining 4 star alinment. Went to tour and it did semi locate viewing items for me but each needed a tweak. Now I put this down to not being able to input a star from the west, am I correct in this?? and as long as all the views were from around orion it did ok. But moving west it could't locate a view for me, even M31, any advice here folks , I know it's me and that I'm not doing something right. Got an excellent view of a neb (i think) in orion. I must take a note pad out next time and record all the views,times etc, learning all the time hey. Mars, well I feel a bit down hearted with the view, in the 25mm plossl I got a nice round ball, going down to a 9 and 6mm lost all crispness, it just looked Rubbish, I think this was due to condensation upon the EPs???? not sure but I did expect to see a orange ball at least, ummmm, should I have done??? So whats my conclusions??? In the hands of an experenced person who knows the ins and outs of scopes I think it would be a great scope and mount, I need to use it a lot more and get use to all the in and outs, I did have a great time getting to know the names of stars, whcih you won't get with the 6SE, so yes I'm please, I know theres a problem with me setting it up, but it did say 4 star alignment complete, but there are 4 stars to align it to and theres 4 stars to align it to, if that make sense????? I would think 4 stars one from the N,E,S, & W, would be best?????? I do believe the instructions could be set out so much better. If someone was showing a person how to set it up and use it would only take an evening and you;d be on your way, hey theres a business idea there lol. Any advice will as per normal be greatly recived.

Dave :?

[dogfish]

Hi Dave

Glad you got a chance to get out with your new kit, was too cloudy here in Glasgow.

As for your first night out, it doesn't sound too bad and I'm sure it will come together in the next couple of nights. The problem with these GoTo mounts is that you have to get everything right or they don't work. Sometimes working out what isn't quite right can take a few nights. I was surprised to hear you could find four alignment stars with your restricted view of the sky. Mine usually points me to a star in the West and then one in the East. One tip on getting the alignment set more accurately is to centre the star first in low power, then in a high power EP. It can also help if you defocus the star (so it looks like a ball of concentric rings) as this can make it easier to centre.

Mars definitely does look like a planet, even in a low power EP, but the views have been disappointing, although a little better lately. You should be able to see Saturn with your Eastward views, if you can wait until about 11.00pm.

As for entering the lat and long coordinates, it prompts you for the data in the following format 000:00:00 confirm West, 00:00:00 confirm North. You may have tried to enter data that you had in the 00.000 format. Usually, you find both formats on somewhere like Google Earth (multimap and the other street mapping sites will also give you the lat and long data as well and usually in both formats).

Persevere, and re-read the manual another couple of times and you'll soon get the hang of it.

Cheers, Martin

[Whippy]

Sounds like quite a good first light to me, most people don't get to see anything on their first night!!

Anyhoo, the GOTO on your mount should be fine after aligning to 4 stars but you didn't mention that you polar aligned your mount. Ensuring that your mount is level (using the bubble level) and your polar alignment is accurate(ish) would make it a little more accurate. Also you're right in assuming that using stars from all over your field of view would make the GOTO work better, you can choose which stars you want during the alignment process.

Personally, I'm finding Mars to be a frustrating object. TBH I reckon you build it up in your own mind that as it's so close to us you're going to see loads of detail but I've hardly seen any. Last night was the best I've seen it over this period and even then it wasn't great. I think you'll find Saturn a little more 'pleasing' shall we say .

Tony..

[LaVey]

Hi ombos...

I too bought a C6-SGT about a couple of months back with no knowledge of astronomy.. I still struggle to get my GOTO to actually 'goto'.. (user error/crappy set up routine)

As for mars, I have managed to catch some detail on it using a x2/x3 barlow (also mangaed to image it with the webcam!).. as said here Saturn is deffo a cool sight.. this lives up to expectations..

Its just a matter of perseverance..

Also, the best buy i've made so far for this scope is the dew sheild from FLO.. had around 3 hours odd viewing last night and still no dew, previously without the sheild I could only manage maybe an hour before the dew/frost ended my night.

[ombos]

Thanks all , good comments, I think it just like you all say, just keep reading and doing, Martin thats an excellent idea, will do. Does anyone know how to delete numbers etc from the display???? If I use undo it just takes me back to the previous menu????

Your comments made me feel soooooo much better.

Tar Lads, lovely stuff. :sunny:

[thing]

Once you've used it half a dozen times you'll get the hang of it. I remember when I started with mine that it would point at the ground, anywhere but where the stars were. I found out that the cable that connects to the DEC motor is one directional ie you have to have it connected the right way. It took me about 2 nights of hair pulling to figure that one. It is frustrating first off, stick with it though.

As to the views, I have only made out a tiny bit of detail on Mars myself, so it just looks Rubbish at the moment. Saturn is worth waiting up for. Galaxies and nebula (apart from Orion which is pretty cool) just look like blobs of fog. The best and most interesting views I find are star clusters and binary stars. They look just like they do in the photos. Theres one in particular, Eta Cas which should be fairly high up at any time as it's in Cassiopeia which looks really good, a bright red star with it's partner.

I think that now I know what I can see and more importantly what I can't see, it's becoming a little more interesting. The other thing I do, especially if I'm out latish so as not to disturb the neighbours with the motor drive is do some manual slewing around at a slow rate which is a lot quieter. You get to know where things are as well, it's surprising how close some of these objects are to each other in the sky.

It's a steep but very fast learning curve, since I started in late Nov I would say my knowledge of the sky has improved immeasurably, and it continues to do so every time I use it.

Ah the display thing, make sure when you are adding numbers that you put the zeroes in as well. So if you were inputting M42 you would press 1 for the Messier catalogue then 042, not 42.

[rob7]

I got far less done on my first set up with my C6s-gt on my first outing that you seem to have managed, so it sounds like your gonna do fine in the long run. I guess a lot of new astronomers want to run before they can walk [especially me]! You can take your time with this hobby as the stars aren't going nowhere..I've had my C6 a few months longer than you and am still learning what it does and what it can do. I actually see the learning curve as part of the fun, so I don't necessarily need to have all the 'feathers in the cap' all at once. I see my goto as a useful luxury, but I still like learning the night sky using star charts and then hunting objects down. Once I find them, I set the tracking and enjoy. Mars hasn't been the best planet to view for me , but I recently started experimenting with filters and have now seen some detail. Saturn is always nice and will be very crisp through your scope. Like with most scope its worth getting a few well thought out accessories which will improve your scope capabilities even more.

Last night I was getting some lovely views through my newly aquired 2" eyepieces and I also dabbled with basic astro photograpy. With the tracking running I got some lovely pics usung my digital camera of Mars and M42 I even managed to pick up the Andromeda galaxy, but by then was being hampered by dew. Actually, thinking of due, I would recommend you buy or make one accessory, a dew shield. Most nights I was hampered with dew on the corrector, so I bought a dew shield whichs has prolonged each of my observing sessions.

Happy days with your scope,

Rob.

[dogfish]

Hi Dave

Glad the advice has reassured you. I do remember warning you in the thread where you were discussing what 'scope to buy, that it would take you a few goes to get it right.

Whilst I'm here I'll run over a couple of other bits of advice including common user errors. A very common error is to put the date in wrong, although as you were there or thereabouts, you probably got this bit right. The date goes MM.DD.YYYY, as opposed to the British way. You also mention that you used a compass to polar align. I'm guessing this is because you don't have a view of Polaris. As you probably know, magnetic north and true north are not identical. There is an adjustment you can make, but I can't remember what it is off hand, but a google search (or someone on here) will quickly find it for you. Another user error is to get confused over the proper date settings. It's universal time and when prompted to adjust for daylight saving, say no (until BST comes round again and then it's yes).

I agree that a dew shield is strongly advisable and a dew heater tape, if you can afford it. A cheap alternative is to buy a 12V hairdryer, which I find clears the corrector plate in about a minute.

Hope that all helps and let us know when you are sorted (or if this isn't happening, come back and pick our brains again).

Cheers, Martin

PS As for deleting numbers, the undo button should move the cursor backwards, so you can overwrite the numbers you've already entered.

[ombos]

YOOOOOOOOO, once again you've done the business, yes I was inputting YES for day light saving time, phewwwwwwww another one bites the dust, I'm getting there. And I was missing out the 0 for Ms I tried to input 42 instead of 042, what a drip I am, many thanks.

Now one thing I did find out that made it easy for me to star align was to pick the stars that I wanted to align to and could see. Like I said the best part of last night was getting to know the stars.

Most excellent stuff this, sometimes its the simple things that seem to get me confused, thats not to say that ALL the other issues don't the same lol.

Cheers Dave

[dogfish]

Hi Dave

Looking forward to hear that it's working like a dream

Martin

[thing]

YOOOOOOOOO, once again you've done the business, yes I was inputting YES for day light saving time, phewwwwwwww another one bites the dust, I'm getting there. And I was missing out the 0 for Ms I tried to input 42 instead of 042, what a drip I am, many thanks.

Now one thing I did find out that made it easy for me to star align was to pick the stars that I wanted to align to and could see. Like I said the best part of last night was getting to know the stars.

Most excellent stuff this, sometimes its the simple things that seem to get me confused, thats not to say that ALL the other issues don't the same lol.

Cheers Dave

I tell you what I do with the alignment stars, I change which ones they are every time I use the scope, and see where it points. It's pretty obvious which the alignment stars are once it's pointing in the rough direction and a quick check with Stellarium if you're not sure puts your mind at rest. After a few goes you should know about 2 dozen stars to align to just by having a quick look at the sky. Saves guessing where they are and it's a good way of learning where some of the brighter stars are in relation to each other. I know you should look at star charts to learn this sort of thing but I have difficulty looking at a chart then looking at the sky and trying to decide where everything is. The GoTo has been ultra useful in teaching me how to get around the sky. A lot of the time I use it to get to a new object that I haven't seen before, then I try and think what other objects are close to it and see if I can manually motor to them. I spent years using binos to look at the sky but I reckon I've learned more in the last couple of months about where things are in relation to other objects than all the other years put together.

One other thing i do as well is use the Dec/RA read out on the hand control to double check that the object I think I've found manually is actually where it should be.

[ombos]

Many thanks Thing, all the information collected from different people soon adds up, the time saving is massive. Not to say frustration.

Cheers Dave