Need help / advice how to setup my telescope... problems....

[Qwiati]

I was able to setup my telescope out for stargazing three times so far and as far as I am happy with what I can see, the problem I am constantly facing is alignment…

1. I used the StarSense Auto – sky was clear enough for the telescope to align in about 5 min and all seems fine, until I asked the scope to show me some object I know where it should be on the sky – Jupiter is one example.

I was surprised to see no Jupiter in the eyepiece, instead my scope was pointing about 5cm to the left…

2. I used the StarSense Manual – the same story as above…

3. I used manual Solar Star Alignment – pointed at Jupiter, moved to other objects on the sky, then asked scope to show my Jupiter again and it was off about 2cm.

I tried to calibrate the StarSense camera many times and as far as I could see the new center was set. I then switched my scope off and on, tried auto and manual alignment… same story… Jupiter off about 5cm.

When I set Solar Star alignment, I set correct GPS location from GPS Compass, time was set to UTC +1 ….

Another issue is when I point and manually corrected the Jupiter position in the eyepiece (centered), the tracking of the planet seems to go a bit different direction and after few minutes Jupiter was not any more in center of the eyepiece but more to the top in my view.

When I came back home and started to pack my scope, I also noticed that the primary mirror is fogged and it looked like the mirror was dirty or because there it was a bit windy at times something got stuck to the primary mirror – like a dust or something – how and if at all I can clean this?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Regards,

Kris 

[ronin]

Where in Europe are you?

What timezone was supplied, the Celestron timezones in the manuals do not  really match to the time that Europe covers

What do you means by 5cm?

Do you mean 5 degrees as cm is not a measurement that makes sense in this, well to me at least.

I would suspect the timezone that is used, the Celestron manual appears to possibly have France and Spain in one and Germany and Italy in another in different ones, but they are not. I suspect that the information used is somewhat out of date since Europe became more integrated.

[Qwiati]

Thank  you for your reply.
 
First, in daylight, I did the finderscope - eyepiece alignment so that the red dot is centered to what is in the eyepiece
 
The 5 cm is the distance between what I can see in the eyepiece and where the object I was looking at the laster finderscope was - I am sorry but I am not good at the degrees on the sky (as yet I hope)
 
The date and time and timezone - I hope - was correct - looking at what google says now is:
 
6:15 PM
Thursday, February 27, 2014 (UTC)
Time in Coordinated Universal Time
 
So i set the UTC +1 for timezone in Belgium - please correct me as I might be wrong here.
 
The coordinates I set for Brussels were:
 
latitude: N 50° 49' 48"
longitude: E 4° 19' 48"
 
I am not sure how accurate this is as it was taken from GPS device...
 
Here is what I have found from internet:
 
Latitude Longitude Finder
Place Name
Brussels
Latitude  50.850340
Longitude 4.351710
 
DMS Lat  50° 51' 1.2240'' N
DMS Long 4° 21' 6.1560'' E
 
Would the above make such a difference?
 
Please advice.

[NGC 1502]

If you are unable to find a solution on this forum, perhaps a local astronomy club could help ?  

http://www.astronomyclubs.com/country/Belgium

Hope you are successful, Ed.

[Qwiati]

I will try but I dont speak French or Duch so it might be a bit difficult... thank you the link, it might turn up very helpful

[oldpink]

lots of them will speak English

[ronin]

The coordinates are OK, they only generally use Degree and minutes or 2 decimal places.

Just reread the first post. You should be setting the timezone to +1, you say time was set to UTC+1.

Then the time is whatever your watch/clock shows.

If you are in Brussels then I suggest you select Brussels from the list of location options supplied.That should then set the Lat+Long and the timezone for you. You would then just supply the actual time and say DST is Off.

That I suppose is the other question - did you say DST = On by chance? Just at this time of the year it isn't.

[Qwiati]

I did set the UTC+1 and DST=No, then the time from my clock... 

Unfortunately the SkyProdigy isn't that clever as others and the only location I can set on the handheld is by using coordinates... maybe I just give up the star sense and just watch whatever I can move and pick on the sky but this doesn't sounds that exciting as when you can have fun and learn with your telescope.

Anyway thanks all for your good advice.

Kris  

[Qwiati]

Just to update anyone having similar issues...

Celestron agreed to replace the mount and handset... The only problem is... Celestron Service in the UK doesn't want to pay for the courier service collection wise, just because I am in Belgium :-)

[ronin]

If you purchased through a retailer in Belgium would it not go back through them. Does assume it was a recognised astronomy retailer and not an online site like Amazon.

Did they give any idea of the cost, just thinking that it may not be that high.

I assume it is to D Hinds.

[Qwiati]

eh it was purchased via Amazon.co.uk but the dealer is very kind and working hard to get the Celestron in the UK to resolve this.

I called TNT and was told the transport cost would be around £34 - which seems to be high for Celestron... very strange IMHO.

K

[ronin]

Problem will be that they should be returned via the retailer, and Amazon will not supply that level of service.

I think the Celestron interface is D Hinds and they are (were) about 30-40 miles North of London off the normal access routes. If they had been in London I would have said find the cost of a Euro Train trip and perhaps have a day out.

Is there not a European distributor to return it to?

May just be a bit less cost.

[Davey-T]

Not sure how they calculate delivery charges, I've ordered a small T adapter from TS and one  delivery option cost more than the item itself and the cheapest nearly as much.

Dave 

[Qwiati]

ended up paying for it myself... well they said I will get refund for courier service.. if not eh I would still be happy to finally have working telescope and that is all what matters to me as I love this blumming stargazing stuff ;-)