Newbie help please celestron evolution 9.25

[Suffolk_Sky]

Hi all,

I have been really interested in astronomy for some time and have recently purchased a celestron nexstar evolution 9.25. I am great at finding the moon but I am really struggling getting the telescope to align using the sky portal app.

I am carrying the telescope out into the garden , I am not checking if it's level, do I need to do this, it helpfully has a level on the tripod, but unhelpfully it is covered up when you mount the scope and I am leaving it all attached and carrying it whole.

I am pointing the scope at bright stars and pressing align and then centering the star in the finder using the reduced slew rate, fine then the next star... Same process. Then alignment failed matched none !!

It has my gps co-ordinates from the app. I had tried the same process several nights and haven't matched one star yet. I am getting a little frustrated, I am hoping someone with more experience can tell me what / where I am going wrong ? Thanks in advance for taking the time to respond

[Owmuchonomy]

I'm not familiar with this system but one thing that occurs to me is to check your finder is aligned with your scope using a distant object in daylight. In addition I would have thought the GoTo relies on aligning your scope and star not your finder and star. Make sure they are both aligned and use the finder just to roughly align and use the scope view for proper alignment.

[knobby]

Don't know the new scopes but there might be some interesting reading on here

http://www.weasner.com/etx/menu.html

and here

http://www.nexstarsite.com/

Nice scope !

And yes, the levelling seems to be important

All the best

[Suffolk_Sky]

Thanks for the replies, I have aligned the finder scope in the day time with the telescope and then refined at night they are both spot on. So I am finding the star with the finder scope, and then using the telescope to centre etc. I don't know if you have to pick stars close to each other, far away, what is a bright star ? There is very little documentation with the scope and less online about this app, I am sure I am missing something simple, but not sure what yet... Thanks for the links as well I will take a look

[ronin]

It does not sound as if you are doing enough to align the scope.

The mount is Alt/Az so getting it level is relevant, especially as they have bothered to put one on.

I will admit that usually when levelling a mount is important they do not supply one. :grin:

You may need to start with the tube is some preset position. (RTM)

On a Meade this is normally with the mount level, and the tube level and aiming North.

Will say Celesstrons and Skywatchers tend not to use this but it is as good as anything.

It may have an option to start with mount level, OTA pointing North and OTA centered on Polaris.

There should be an alignment procedure requested for you to follow.

Does the handset say Easy Align, 2 Star Align, Anything Align ?

The scope generally needs to use 2 stars to work out position errors, time errors, and the tilt in front/back and left/right. These are then applied to the movement.

The 2 stars are not necessarily any two.

What does the manual state for alignment ?

There is usually a section called Alignment or 2 Star Alignment.

The Weasner site is Meade ETX scopes as yours is the Celestron it will not hold information for you, even finding Meade ETX information can take time.

[Suffolk_Sky]

the instructions for AZ mount says pick any bright star in the sky, point your scope at it, click align, then centre the star, click align again. Repeat 2 more times.... And the. Your away...

Sadly not experiencing this ease of setup, I think it must be the level...

[Suffolk_Sky]

It was the levelling, put the iPhone onto spirit level mode set the tripod straight and it aligned first time, annoying really at the opportunities missed because of that.... Plenty more to come though

[oldannie]

As I'm a naive beginner with only experience  of an HEQ5 type mount this may be entirely irrelevant but the basis for my star alignment is having the mount  accurately polar aligned!

I have found a number of things very frustrating and not very well explained  but have persevered and finally got somewhere!

Lots of luck

Annie

[JG777]

Are you using the app for this?
Try the handset as the app can be a bit unreliable.
Level the tripod
Absolutely ensure date, time and co-ordinates are in correctly and the correct format

Daylight saving OFF
If your doing a 3 star align use stars to form a nice large triangle in the sky, but do not use stars below 30 degrees or higher than 70 as this reduces the chance of an align
Quite a few people report better success rates with 2 star align

I have found mine works very well on 3 star align with above criteria met, but I only use the app for finding and locating stuff rather than operating the scope.

Good luck

[Suffolk_Sky]

Great thanks for the advice, appreciated

[Hootsitabernacle]

I have never managed to align mine first time..occasionally I get it 2nd time round but usually third attempt and I get it..and yes make sure its level and try pick the stars not too close together..happy hunting!

[wheresthetorch?]

Really glad you got it sorted - must have been a relief when that 'alignment matched' message popped up! Funny the level isn't a place where you can see it with the scope mounted the tripod.