Am I thick or Just unlucky ? help

[dafed]

Hi guys, now i don't think I'm really thick, but I admit sometime it takes a while to sink in, Now I'm a newbie and as such

I went and bought a CPC 800 edge hd scope , and a celestron starsense, so far so good I'v had some great viewing

but tonight i thought i would use the Starsense to Auto align , I turned it on and it did its thing, then when it had finished 

i pressed the button to go to the moon, it went very close then i had to calibrate it by using the hand control,

but no matter what i did it would not auto align and yes i did follow the instructions in the manual but no joy so can anyone of you 

very experienced guys help me please.

regards

david

[Uplooker]

Hi David sorry for your troubles, unfortunately I am unfamiliar with this kit, so not in a position to advice. I am sure someone will be along shortly who can answer your question.

Ian

[alanjgreen]

You are not alone.

The starsense software is currently inaccurate on solar system objects - this is a known bug in the HC software (the algorithm for calculating planet & moon position).

I have the starsense and I also get inaccurate results on all planets and the moon (at least the moon is big and easy to make the manual final adjustment)

They will make a fix for this minor issue once they fix all the more major EQ mount issues.

Alan

[haitch]

Lol - hope you didn't buy it for planetary observing!

Seriously - is that true? it doesn't goto anything in our own solar system? That's not fit for purpose to my mind. Is their MD the guy with the curly red hair and big red nose and huge feet... oh no sorry, that's Ronald McDonald. Golden Arches not Golden Ar**s.

I shouldn't post when I've been on the cognac but it just tickled me when a goto that doesn't goto becomes a minor issue. Us astronomers are such a tolerant bunch.

[davedownsouth]

Not sure about solar objects, but when you calibrate on a named star, the instruction manual for the starsense is written wrong.  From what I remember, the FIRST TIME SETUP: CALIBRATE CENTER, tell you to chose a star from the list and then get in in the center of your eyepiece.  You will now be at step 5. if you are following the paper copy of the instruction manual and this is where it is wrong.  It tells you to Press ENTER, once the start is in the field of view of your eyepiece.  If you do this, the scope will auto align back on the star, which is not what you want it to do.  What you need to do is press the Align button, and then flow the on screen instructions.  It then works if you follow the instructions carefully.  I can't believe that they let such a hugh misprint appear in the paper copy of the manual, as if you follow the instructions, as I am sure you have been doing, it will not work  .  Hope you get it sorted .

NB.  As I found tonight, the starsense will not work off the batteries in the scope alone.  It has to be plugged into some sort of a power supply, or at least this is what I found out tonight (the hard way  ).

[davedownsouth]

Lol - hope you didn't buy it for planetary observing! Seriously - is that true? it doesn't goto anything in our own solar system? That's not fit for purpose to my mind. Is their MD the guy with the curly red hair and big red nose and huge feet... oh no sorry, that's Ronald McDonald. Golden Arches not Golden Ar**s. I shouldn't post when I've been on the cognac but it just tickled me when a goto that doesn't goto becomes a minor issue. Us astronomers are such a tolerant bunch.

I am not sure this is true.  Once it is auto aligned and star calibrated, the Moon, Jupiter and Mars (not tried anything else yet), ping straight into the centre of the eyepiece every-time .

[hobsey]

I have yet to use mine yet so I can't help but I'm glad dave has mentioned the miss print for aligning.

Also, have you installed the latest firmware?

[alanjgreen]

If you join teamcelestron then you can read all about it...

[davedownsouth]

I have yet to use mine yet so I can't help but I'm glad dave has mentioned the miss print for aligning.

Also, have you installed the latest firmware?

No, unfortunately, because my computer (Imac) does not have a serial port on it, there is no way I can connect the starsense (or hand controller) to it . At work we do have an old computer running XP which has a serial port. I might try using this at some time.

[hobsey]

No, unfortunately, because my computer (Imac) does not have a serial port on it, there is no way I can connect the starsense (or hand controller) to it . At work we do have an old computer running XP which has a serial port. I might try using this at some time.

If you get really stuck Dave, I'm not too far away.

Could meet up in Tilford or elstead with my laptop.

[Toymaster]

No, unfortunately, because my computer (Imac) does not have a serial port on it, there is no way I can connect the starsense (or hand controller) to it . At work we do have an old computer running XP which has a serial port. I might try using this at some time.

You can get serial to USB adaptors that come with the drivers, but not sure if they will run on the iMac.

Might be worth checking...

Ade

[davedownsouth]

If you get really stuck Dave, I'm not too far away.

Could meet up in Tilford or elstead with my laptop.

Hi Hobsey,

thanks for the very kind offer, I do know my way around computers which I am use to (a bit), but on new bits of kit like this, I am clueless  .  If we were to do this after 7pm and meet in a park / golf club car park somewhere around Tilford (easier than Elsted for me, but very happy to do Elsted instead if it is better for you) you could then try out my Starlight Microfocuser SCT (saw you were interested in one in another thread).  If you are up for this, let me know when suits you?

NB  Has anyone else found that golf club car parks are an excellent place to set up scopes, or at least they are in the Alton area .

You can get serial to USB adaptors that come with the drivers, but not sure if they will run on the iMac.

Might be worth checking...

Ade

Guess I could try this, but the reason we have got an old computer at work with a serial port running XP is that USB / Serial port adaptors just don't work reliably (but this may be an operating system problem and not the cables fault 

[dafed]

Lol - hope you didn't buy it for planetary observing! Seriously - is that true? it doesn't goto anything in our own solar system? That's not fit for purpose to my mind. Is their MD the guy with the curly red hair and big red nose and huge feet... oh no sorry, that's Ronald McDonald. Golden Arches not Golden Ar**s. I shouldn't post when I've been on the cognac but it just tickled me when a goto that doesn't goto becomes a minor issue. Us astronomers are such a tolerant bunch.

Yes not a good idea to post when on the Cognac.

[dafed]

I have yet to use mine yet so I can't help but I'm glad dave has mentioned the miss print for aligning.

Also, have you installed the latest firmware?

Not yet Hobsey, but i will soon, thanks

[dafed]

Not sure about solar objects, but when you calibrate on a named star, the instruction manual for the starsense is written wrong.  From what I remember, the FIRST TIME SETUP: CALIBRATE CENTER, tell you to chose a star from the list and then get in in the center of your eyepiece.  You will now be at step 5. if you are following the paper copy of the instruction manual and this is where it is wrong.  It tells you to Press ENTER, once the start is in the field of view of your eyepiece.  If you do this, the scope will auto align back on the star, which is not what you want it to do.  What you need to do is press the Align button, and then flow the on screen instructions.  It then works if you follow the instructions carefully.  I can't believe that they let such a hugh misprint appear in the paper copy of the manual, as if you follow the instructions, as I am sure you have been doing, it will not work  .  Hope you get it sorted .

NB.  As I found tonight, the starsense will not work off the batteries in the scope alone.  It has to be plugged into some sort of a power supply, or at least this is what I found out tonight (the hard way  ).

Thanks Dave, il just keep on trying.

[todd8137]

Another "minor issue " at least every one is beta testing for them who have them I shall wait a while till I get one ,hope you have the issue sorted is it ok on dso stuff tho ?

Pat

[dafed]

Another "minor issue " at least every one is beta testing for them who have them I shall wait a while till I get one ,hope you have the issue sorted is it ok on dso stuff tho ?

Pat

Thanks Pat , haven't  got s as far as dso yet.

[todd8137]

Must be a pain tho am sure so e new firm ware will come along soon

Pat

[alanjgreen]

With the CPC1100 (AZ fork mount) all DSO come in bang on dead centre everytime

If a target comes slightly off centre then you can just add a new alignment point in that area, try again and then it comes in dead centre

The only issue is solar system objects, they come in close but just out of FOV. I just use my RACI finder to centre them.

I have not had any alignment failures and I must have done around 100 by now.

Alan

ps. I am using ss1.10.14008

[alanjgreen]

copy/paste from team celestron

"Problem:Can't find solar system objects, year from RTC reads as 2012 instead of 2013. This might also affect GPS Solution:Set the year manually after each power cycle. This should only happen in December. We have a bug fix due out soon."

[alanjgreen]

another copy/paste referring to the latest Jan14 software

Re: Planet pointing errors

» Mon Feb 03, 2014 11:38 am

I found that the actual position of Jupiter is currently about 15 arcminutes west of the computed position using the January 10th beta firmware for both HC and SSA.

[DRT]

I have been using the CPC1100 for a few weeks now and have always aligned using the Solar System method. Slewing to objects using GOTO has been pretty accurate but in the past week or two I noticed that the GOTO was quite far off. Tonight it couldn't even get to the moon from Jupiter!

I read this thread and the manual and decided to try a couple of things. First I set the proper date and time for my location on the handset and then I used the SkyAlign function, which automatically recognises three bright stars once you have centred each of them in turn. It is now working perfectly

I don't know if it was the time setting or the alignment method that did the job but it is fixed now so I don't really care.

[Chris Rowland]

SkyAlign is for the original NexStar HCs, not StarSense.

All HCs benefit from setting the correct location and time, if these are wrong, even if the HC is aligned to the sky, the position of the horizon will be incorrect and the objects the HC thinks are visible will be incorrect.

The date issue with the SS HC only affect dates in December and has been fixed in the January version.  I tried a preliminary version of this in December and it was OK.

Computing the plant positions is more difficult than the fixed stars. The plant position problem does not affect fixed stars and DSOs.  My experience with Mars and Jupiter on the 1st March was that they were close to correct.  This problem may vary with the date, but it's being worked on.

My experience with the StarSense is that the basic functionality of automatically aligning a scope works well.  There are issues and they are being worked on.

Chris

[dafed]

 Well last night i tried again but no luck , even though i had updated the handset and starsense camera to the new firmware it still would not "go to"

the only time it sort of worked was when i did a manual alignment on the moon and even then, when i tried to goto   jupiter it was slightly off.

But look on the bright side the views i got of the moon and Jupiter were superb, and all this messing about is helping me to learn about my scope and Astronomy in general

allbeit the hard way plus i find the SGL crowd very helpfull, ( thank you Chris, Dave , Alan ) to name a few who without i probably would have given up.

I have checked that the dates and the time are correct and i presume that it should be set to UST 0, ah well just keep on trying.

Thank you guys for your help. 

[Chris Rowland]

There's not much we can do with no information about what went wrong with the StarSense align.  You get quite a lot of information while the mount is going through the align dance.

One thing that helps is to remove the cover from the StarSense camera!

I tried the SSA with my Astro Society's CPC1100, this was entertaining because I had to drive the dome so the scope could see out before it was aligned but as long as I kept up it aligned with no problems.

Chris