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Celestron NexStar 8 SE


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Attempted to allign the telescope today using the one star alignment. The GoTo function stated that it was alligned. Not even close. It's weird that I used the star Vega to allign the telescope. After it was alligned supposedly, I directed it to find Vega. The telescope pointed straight down. Almost like it was giving up.   :grin:

I didn't get a chance to allign it during the day. I will do that tomorrow. Eventually I know it will all fall into place. :confused:

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Attempted to allign the telescope today using the one star alignment. The GoTo function stated that it was alligned. Not even close. It's weird that I used the star Vega to allign the telescope. After it was alligned supposedly, I directed it to find Vega. The telescope pointed straight down. Almost like it was giving up.   :grin:

The usual answer is to say; did you input the date & time correctly, but seeing your location I guess that it is a yes. :smiley:  Did you input Longitude & Latitude the right way round ? fwiw I, and many others, use two-star (manual, not auto) align. A sense of humour is necessary with GOTOs. :grin:

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Attempted to allign the telescope today using the one star alignment. The GoTo function stated that it was alligned. Not even close. It's weird that I used the star Vega to allign the telescope. After it was alligned supposedly, I directed it to find Vega. The telescope pointed straight down. Almost like it was giving up.   :grin:

I didn't get a chance to allign it during the day. I will do that tomorrow. Eventually I know it will all fall into place. :confused:

The only time my 8SE has done this for me is when I forgot to turn on the power pack it was plugged into and it was running off it's internal batteries.  Power supply would be the first thing I would blame, based on my experience.

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Hello Again My fellow Stargazers,

No success again this morning with the alignment. It seems however that when I unlocked the handset and downloaded the CFM program that I no longer have the same options as before. For example, I no longer have the options to do a "Sky Align" or an "Auto Two-Star Align. When I do the regular "Two-Star Align" I am prompted for a "Calib Star" which I do not see in the instructions.

So far All I have seen with this telescope that I can not see with my naked eye is the surface of the moon. With that said, I am certain that with time and the help of Celestron support, I'll be finding Saturn and Jupiter one day.

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Really sorry to see the problems you are having with the mount - the OTA itself is fantastic, love mine, but I didn't get on with the mount either.  I gave up and upgraded to an NEQ6, which is a lot easier to use, but keep persevering - I do hear of people getting them to work.  It was the noise and accuracy that put me off eventually.

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Hello Stargazers,

Per Celestron's instructions I was able to load the proper program onto my handset. Thank you  Celestron support. Afterwards I had a successful two star alignment. The finderscope worked well. The first alignment procedure that I attempted was the sky allign. That did not go so well. It was easy doing the finderscope part but finding the star through the eyepiece was tough. I gave up on that one. It was great to get the telescope aligned properly for only my second and first time since coming back from Cancun. Using the telescope on my deck is very limited. I can only look south east because I have homes obstructing my vision. The only planet in our solar system that was availabe was pluto. It looked like a very distant start. Tomorrow night will be the first night that I venture away from the house. It would be nice to have an attempt at finding Saturn and Jupiter.

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Last night was my first night in an area where I could examine the entire sky. Unfortunately I did not bring a compass with me. That was a big mistake. Didn't know what direction I was facing and I did not have my computer with me because I could not get internet service at this park. The "Sky Align" procedure of the NexStar system does not require one to know the stars but it never seems to work for me. It's easy to point at the star with the finder scope but it is hard to find that same star in the eyepiece. I ended up just moving the telescope up and down and left to right. Didn't find anything spectactular but the night sky was beautiful. Still waiting for my chance to see Saturn and Jupiter. Maybe I'll move to Chile where one can see tons of stars in the sourthern part of our Milky Way galaxy.  :laugh:

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Today I found Saturn. I used the First Light software that came with the telescope to see what was available to me. Saturn was southeast from deck at 10:30 PM central time. I looked up to the sky to see what objects were bright in the sky. Found an object. Pointed the telescope to that object and it turned out to be Saturn. It was pretty cool to see the rings around the planet. Didn't use the GoTo application today. Used the direction arrows to peruse the night sky. It's a little hard on the neck when the telescope is pointing straight up. All in all the telescope is turning out to be pretty cool. Still have to learn how to use the Barlow lens. It was attached to my telescope but I could not see anything through it. It'll be figured out. Happy stargazing to all.

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If you find something without the Barlow lens in and then attach the Barlow lens, you will have to fiddle with the focus again.  Anytime you change the eyepiece you will have to refocus...should just be a little bit, nothing like what it sounds like you had to do when you first got your scope.  Keep it up, it sounds like you are starting to find stuff.  I just got my scope a few weeks ago, Celestron 6se, and it has been great so far...so don't give up!!!

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Hello again Fellow Stargazers,

Finding stars using the finderscope is becoming easy now. I am not using the GoTo function right now because I can only see around three eighths of the sky from my deck. Therefore there is no real need to align the telescope.  When I go out to some really dark area where the entire sky is visable there should be no problem aligning the scope. The 2x Barlow lens is tricky to use but I'm getting the hang of that too. The Celestron  Nexstar 8SE is a good telescope that I can now recommend highly. It takes awhile for us beginners to get the hang of it but it's worth the effort. Of course like most beginners I wish that I had a big enough telescope to find some of the billions of exoplanets that we have in our galaxy. It's good to dream.

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Excellent - glad you've got the hang of it.  The more you use the OTA the more you see and when you get to dark skies and have learned to see (you will understand what that means after about 12-18 months when you starting seeing even more detail) these scopes are fabulous

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I am not using the GoTo function right now because I can only see around three eighths of the sky from my deck. Therefore there is no real need to align the telescope. 

On shorter sessions, I may use the one star or solar system align just to help follow an object especially with lunar and planets. With practice it is quite quick to do, it is a shame that the Celestron does not remember the date and time. Glad to hear you are now enjoying your scope.

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The moon was really bright today and the sky was clear. Using a 6mm lens and a red filter made me feel like a I could touch the moon. Right behind the moon was Saturn and its lovely rings. Good night to be out gazing at stars.

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Hi Nebula

Glad I am not the only one.  My CGEM DX1100 HD is doing the same thing to me.  I just cannot get it to align properly.

Please tell me you have now got the hang of it now.

I can see Mars but its just a tiny orange vibrating blob. Not what I was expecting.

Guess I am at the bottom of a very steep learning curve.

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Hi White Dwarf

Thanks very much for the guidance.  I believe you have got it right.   The seeing conditions are not good where I live and I am looking out over my house which is probably giving off a lot of heat.  I need to find somewhere with darker skies.

As my scope has a focal length of 2800 mm I also need to get a suitable eyepiece in the region of 10mm.

Much appreciated.

Dave :icon_pirat:

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Hello Dave,

Sorry to get back to you so late. I can't say that there was one thing that allowed me to figure out how to align my telescope. It was playing around with it everyday and reading the instructions. Although I must say that the instructions don't always make sense. Celestron helped me quite a bit over the phone. There many others on this forum that advised me to be patient. This is

the best advice that I can give you. Just be patient, keep trying and eventually it will be become second nature. The hardest part for me was finding an object on the telescope after I pointed at

the object with my finderscope. I had to move the telescope two and a half inches to the right and approximately an eighth of an inch down to center the star on the telescope after pointing at

it with the finderscope.

Louis

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Hello Louis. Next time you have found your object in the telescope check its position in your finder and re-align the finder if necessary. Both will be lined up properly and will be easier to use from then on.   :smiley: 

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Saw Venus this morning. It was pretty cool. I used the 13mm lens plus the barlow 2x lens. The planet was blue on the left side, white (silver) in the middle and red on the right side. The moon was pretty cool too.

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