Vx mount go-to problem help!

[lw2689]

Finally a clear night arrived and orion was my target for the night except...

When aligning the scope stars which where not so bright came up in the catalogue on the handset. The plough was in full view (and bright) but none of the stars appeared in my alignment star selection. I live near snowdonia so light pollution is minimal, after a few seconds the Milkyway already appears (which is awesome!) So eventually i found Rastaban a star which isnt particularly bright compared to something like Mizar (or easily found!) once i had completed a 1 star alignment i go to my catalogue of objects and orions nebula isn't even on there? I checked the date and time, all correct? Why did it not appear, anyone know? I would of done 2 star alignment if i actually knew any of the stars in the alignment selection but i didn't :-/

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[ronin]

Skywatcher/Celestron do tend to use some odd alignment stars. I recall one person was asked to centre a very dim star in Leo, which they had never heard of. Why the unit did not pick Denbola or Regulus which are in Leo and bright and single never made sense. So the first point is the mount seems not to make life easy. Also to be better then Meade they have a bigger list of alignment stars.

Next due North is often avoided and the Plough (Mizar) can be North.

There is some way of simply ignoring the one picked/displayed and scrolling off to another.

It is often a simple action - have a read of the manual.

Cannot suggest more then a read as 2 options come to mind:

1) the Up/Down button may scroll along an alignment star list, so you just scroll to a better one, or,

2) you press something like Esc and the handset picks another.

I think there is an Esc button on those handsets, there is not on a Meade, which I am used to.

Knowing how the things operate they may have devied another option - like stand on one leg and hop up and down six times. :eek:

[PeterCPC]

I assume that we are talking about an AVX. This all sounds very weird. The whole point of the AVX is that it suggests bright stars for alignment and you don't have to know them because they will be the brightest stars in that part of the sky. I usually (at the moment) do a 2 star align using Vega and Altair. Are you saying that they do not come up as suggestions? If so, I am at a complete loss and can only suggest updating the firmware to see if that helps. When you went to Deep Sky it did not show the Orion Nebula? Did you search under the Messier objects?

Peter

[brantuk]

Have you set the mount for Northern Hemisphere or Southern? It can make a huge difference. (just a thought). In Celestron scopes the setting is called EQ North or EQ South. Hth

[CSM]

Check that you have the date entered in the correct format mm dd yy and set to UTC with the daylight saving off and the long and lat set correctly.  Should work ok then if you select one of the alignment stars and centre that as accurately as possible, preferably using a reticule eyepiece.  Just eyeballing a 25mm will not get you near enough.  At this time of  year I would have thought something like Capella might be a better alignment star.  Rastaban isn't exactly bright or conveniently placed.  And have you set anything for the minimum altitude - could explain why Orion not found as it won't appear at a decent altitude until after around 9pm. 

[des anderson]

Hi,and all good advise so far.Try a factory reset,this might resolve the problem.Des

[Gazabone]

I keep getting severely ******** with my AVX.  The last time I decided to put it in the attic and forget it (so far it's only made its way to my bedroom).  However, I keep finding the willpower from somewhere to make it work so I'm sure it'll get another outing.

I have to say that I have no problem finding targets using setting circles on my NEQ6 and even EQ3-2.  It may not be as quick when the GoTo is working but it's more accurate and if you take into account the amount of time taken trying to get the AVX aligned (and failing) actually it's a lot quicker.

In balance though, I do love using the Celestron Starsense on my 6se.  Not only is setting up and alignment a whole lot quicker than any eq setup, it's very quick to get to the targets I want to look at.

Happy viewing all.

[PeterCPC]

I can usually get my AVX aligned in about 10 minutes and Polar Aligned in another 15mins. I just follow the manual instructions. I gave up on my Starsense as I couldn't get an accurate enough PA.

Peter

[lw2689]

Thank you for the advice, i shall get out the manual and have a read. It was a very odd and disappointing night for sure as i was so excited for the first clear night in so long! Ive probably managed to change something knowing my luck, i did think is it even set to the right hemisphere at one point.

Praying for another clear night soon.