Celestron 8SE -Tracking

[craigb1970]

Hi -  Bought a Celestron 8SE yesterday and just reading through the manual it's not obvious to me whether it is possible to manually aquire an object i.e. without using goto and then get the scope to track it.  If anyone knows if it can be done I'd really appreciate it if you would let me know and also, how to do it. - Thanks - Craig

[ronin]

Strange but no idea.

In order to track the mount needs to have an idea what it is pointed at, or at least the direction and height.

A target due south is moving more or less horizontally, no up/down movement, if it is due east or west the there is little horizontal movement and a lot of vertical. The mount needs therefore to alter the amount of Alt and Az movement applied continuously.

I would have assumed that the amount of horizontal and vertical is determined from the object and time. Meaning that if you move it then this is not available. It could be using the position of an object that you have moved from.

There is actually no reason why the scope should not determine where it is pointing simply by measuring the movement that you have applied from the last know acquired position from either goto or the alignment. However that would need to be something written into the software effectively as an extra, and what I doubt is that they have done that.

Could email either OVL, the importers, or David Hinds for Celestron or Celestron themselves.

Simply because I can see that perhaps it should but would suspect that it doesn't.

Not a lot of help really :grin: .

[Cath]

Once the mount is setup and aligned OK the mount will continuously track where ever you point it - unless you deliberately turn off the tracking.

[Cornelius Varley]

It should be possible, the mount will need a normal star alignment first though I suspect. If you slew the telescope using the directional control keys on the pad the handset should know where it is pointing and will continue to track the target.

[knobby]

On my 4se when I had it I could input the time and location , then aim north ish , slew to Jupiter etc. and it just tracked ... Hope it's the same for you

[craigb1970]

Thanks for all the responses much appreciated, I'll try out the suggestions and let you know how I get on, well once I get a clear sky!!

[Peter Drew]

If you just switch the power on you can use the directional buttons on the handset to manually slew to your object, once you have found it you can set the manual speed to one that suits you and then track your object by dabbing the directional buttons, a bit like using a Dob but electronic nudging. If you want the mount to track automatically, as posted by others, you have to enter your time, date and location details and at least do a one star allignment. 

[LukeSkywatcher]

It should be possible, the mount will need a normal star alignment first though I suspect. If you slew the telescope using the directional control keys on the pad the handset should know where it is pointing and will continue to track the target.

This the method i use. It only needs a one star align before hand. Then just slew the scope with the directional buttons to your target and it will track. 

[stevend]

I concur with other comments. I have a 127SLT and it tracks only after I have gone through a setup, any setup. For a quick session I just align on a single object and go from there.

[matsey]

I've got the 6SE which has the same software as the 8SE and yes the quickest way to get set up is to go through a one-star alignment. In fact just as quick and sometimes easier to do if there is the moon or a visible planet in the sky, is to do a solar system align. With both the one-star and solar-system align the tracking and goto won't be fantastically accurate, but it'll be good enough for a quick session. You can always replace the alignment "star" or add an additional alignment star on a subsequent goto which will increase the accuracy.  I often do that anyway as the evening progresses as I've always found that the goto accuracy on my 6SE degrades over the course of a few hours if it wasn't spot on to begin with.

One thing I will say from my own experience though is that it is worth spending some time when you first get the scope learning how to properly align and pick up all the little techniques to improve accuracy (eg, making sure the alignment star is in the centre of the eyepiece, choosing well-spaced alignment star pairs, etc - do come back to those when you've got the basics sorted!). It does feel quite time consuming when you first start out, but once you've cracked it and know what you're doing you can be up and running in under 10 minutes and the improved accuracy will definitely pay off later in the session when the goto is spot on every time you go to a new object.

Hope that helps, and enjoy your new scope, the SEs lovely scopes  

Matsey

[Pig]

I found the most accurate way was to enter the RA/DEC of your object of choice (data taken from Stellarium) . In my experiences this method tracked objects far better than the other options available.

[LukeSkywatcher]

 In fact just as quick and sometimes easier to do if there is the moon or a visible planet in the sky, is to do a solar system align.

Agreed. A solar system alignment (Moon or planet) is the quickest/easiest way to get tracking. You still have to enter time/date and a rough location (nearest city will do).