celestron c6-s and celestron c8 ngt newtonian

[mysteriousnights]

good evening all,

I hope the skies are filled with jewelry.

ok so im new to the forum but not new to astronomy. I a bit of a lone wolf and tend to avoid astronomy groups (i think this is purely psychological)  and id love to join one but Northampton is lacking from what i see.so i might set my own up.

anyway i have recently bought a newtonian c8 NGT and a c6-s. they are my babies named Samson and Goliath. i do have a problem however and it is time to ask for help.

i could do with someone with same knowledge or even better more techy knowledge than me,because the issue is simple the boys wont align to selected celestial objects! Bear in mind previous owners clearly had no clue how to use them so much so they didnt know what a serial/usb cable was. i have ordered 2 new ones as they were missing but, this is not helping my cause if i cant get my boys to align properly how then would i even consider trying to connect to stellarium, etc etc. so what i need is someone to possibly come have  a look for me and if you can i would urge you to bring cables to connect to pc and stellarium. as i am waiting for mine to come. the scopes are great ive balanced them out and set up correctly including polar aligning but when i type in Betelguese for example and lets be honest if you dont know that big boy then you wont know what im talking about, the scopes seem to slew in the opposite direction.

Now i do suspect it maybe an update problem but again i hit  a brick wall because without cables im going nowhere.

can you please help me.

i have advertised help on community in gumtree and a very nice ERNIEMULL (a user on here) offered me a deal on my scope i graciously declined because those amoung you know those scopes are rare and cannot be purchased anymore.

Guys im a human being in dire need of help and i am asking another human being of this fantastic passion to help me,preferably someone actually coming to take a look for me.

there will be a drink/few quid for your time.

 

 

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

You might get a helpful response from us if you break down your questions and give us a bit more detail. What exactly are these two scopes, so we don't have to Google for the details?

Do the scopes perform properly without the cables, Stellarium and whatnot? If not, the way to go is to get one of them working properly and then connect the accessories.

Do you know how to set up and align a GoTo scope (if that's what these are)? There is no shame in admitting that you don't. Lots of people struggle with them at first, and we are here to help.

[mysteriousnights]

the scopes are as follows a celestron c6-s xlt (discontinued) and a celestron c8-ngt (discontinued) they have cables from mount to scope and hand remote to mount i mentioned i have ordered two new serial/usb cables to connect to stellarium (COMING NEXT WEEK) but this has nothing to do with why they are not doing the basic correct directional slewing.(yes they work yes they slew but this i feel is purely something basic i am missing as i said i have severe adhd and austism for example i couldnt find my cars keys yesterday which were attached on my door keys the reason i missed them even though they were in the door in front of me was because i was used to both sets of keys being separate.the fact i had joined them threw me off thats why i am saying this could be a very basic problem.

i apologise if i come across mumbo in my outlay of problem but its the same for me sometimes when people try to explain hence why i said bullet point description would better suit me. 

ask me to recite a childs rhyme i couldnt do it as me work out the power of 2.6138 billion i can do it no problem.heck ask me postions of stars and where they are and what name they are i can recite it like a dictionary.

i do know the set up from switching on through to polar aligning and setting correct date and time on remote,inc star selection alignment etc etc.

one thing i do notice is that it doesnt give me option to punch in lat co ordinates etc i know my co ordinates from where i am are 52.24 n and 90 degrees west as i said im not new to astronomy i do have understanding of goto scopes, and this is why i am asking for help.

your right about not knowing something, if i dont know something i am that black and white about not knowing i dont pretend to know because why would i make myslef look like a fool lol? that makes no sense and i know many do it 

[Cosmic Geoff]

Is this what your C8 looks like? http://www.celestron.com/browse-shop/uncategorized/c8-ota-telescopes/c8-ngt-computerized-telescope

I can't identify the C6-s from your description. Does it have an equatorial or an alt-azimuth mount?

 

[Peter Drew]

I don't think 90 degrees West is anything like near the UK let alone Northampton, could be a major part of your problem.  

[mysteriousnights]

27 minutes ago, Peter Drew said:

I don't think 90 degrees West is anything like near the UK let alone Northampton, could be a major part of your problem.  

if i  am not 90 degrees west then sgl are wrong because thats where i backed up my calculations

[mysteriousnights]

40 minutes ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

Is this what your C8 looks like? http://www.celestron.com/browse-shop/uncategorized/c8-ota-telescopes/c8-ngt-computerized-telescope

I can't identify the C6-s from your description. Does it have an equatorial or an alt-azimuth mount?

 

they are both equatorial mounts. and yes that is my 8 inch scope in the link my other is a c6-s gt or xlt 

[mysteriousnights]

lets put it this way to make it easier, out of all the expertise including contact with david hinds no one has been able to offer me feasible advice now maybe it is down to my description however i dont think i can be clearer the slewing is simply going in the wrong direction,thats not to say no one know what they are talking about like i said i suspect it may well be a simple update,one hand controller does'nt give me the option of long/lat entering where the other does.

i feel the boys are a bit lost because previous owners i suspect have not entered info properly i.e location london when the scope was picked up in morpeth north east 20 mile nw of newcastle so i think really until i get replacement serial/usb wires  so i can update,for now im a bit stuck

[Filroden]

I posted on your other topic but here it is again:

 

I can't understand if your issue is:

1) the scope slews to Betelgeuse but takes the long way around?

2) the scope slews to the wrong position?

 

If it is (1) then it could be correct.

Equatorial goto mounts will not slew across the meridian on its south side (the imaginary line passing north-south through the celestial pole and the zenith).

If your scope is pointing one side of the meridian, even by only a degree, and you ask it slew using a goto command to the other side, it will go the long way around.

It does this to always keep the counterweight below the scope. Many mounts can physically move past the meridian and will track past the meridian. However, they will not slew using goto past the meridian. They will go the long way from East through North around to the West.

 

If it is (2) then it could be a number of issues such as date/time/location settings. Is the date in the correct format - month day year. Is the time adjusted for summer time? Birmingham UK and not Birmingham Alabama US?

11 minutes ago, mysteriousnights said:

if i  am not 90 degrees west then sgl are wrong because thats where i backed up my calculations

Northampton is approximately 52N 001W. 

090W would put you in the middle of Canada!

[Peter Drew]

12 minutes ago, mysteriousnights said:

if i  am not 90 degrees west then sgl are wrong because thats where i backed up my calculations

Roughly speaking, Northampton (UK) is around 2 degrees West so if you are using 90 degrees West as a setting it could account for the telescope slewing the "wrong" way to make up the difference. 

[alanjgreen]

What you describe is a location issue! The scope thinks it is somewhere else on the earth.

Northampton gps =

Northampton, Northamptonshire, UK

The latitude of Northampton, Northamptonshire, UK is 52.240479, and the longitude is -0.902656. Northampton, Northamptonshire, UK is located at United Kingdom country in the Cities place category

with the gps coordinates of 52° 14' 25.7244'' N and 0° 54' 9.5616'' W

[Cornelius Varley]

13 minutes ago, mysteriousnights said:

if i  am not 90 degrees west then sgl are wrong because thats where i backed up my calculations

You cannot be at 90 degrees west, that would put you in the Atlantic.  The coordinates for the centre of Northampton are 000 54 03 W , 52 14 12 N, these numbers should be entered into the handset in that format and order. The Nexstar handset has a city location database (simply select the nearest city to you) and an option to enter custom location.

[mysteriousnights]

3 minutes ago, alanjgreen said:

simple mistype  , Northamptonshire, UK it is definately set to birmingham uk and that is exactly what i have as coordinates.

Latitude and longitude coordinates are: 52.240479, -0.902656.

 

[Cornelius Varley]

3 minutes ago, Peter Drew said:

Roughly speaking, Northampton (UK) is around 2 degrees West so if you are using 90 degrees West as a setting it could account for the telescope slewing the "wrong" way to make up the difference. 

Northampton is about 1 degree west.

[mysteriousnights]

the handset doesnt allow me to enter specific coordinates this is part of the issue. it only allows for city enter mode and then two star align

[Peter Drew]

1 minute ago, mysteriousnights said:

 

That should be correct, though note that it is 0.9o degrees W not 90.00   

[Cornelius Varley]

Just now, mysteriousnights said:

the handset doesnt allow me to enter specific coordinates this is part of the issue. it only allows for city enter mode and then two star align

Which model mount and handset do you have ?

[mysteriousnights]

maybe main sequence should personally help me thats the nearest geograpihical settings ive had yet but it makes no difference atm 

[mysteriousnights]

Just now, Peter Drew said:

That should be correct, though note that it is 0.9o degrees W not 90.00   

yep a simple mistype like i said ultimately this is going to take a while and not how i intended to start out on here i just need a more techy type to come and look i did say they would be paid for their time i cannot align any closer to polaris and im definitely upset about it it really ruins my week and i feel like a trapped rat right now 

[Filroden]

If it is a Celestron handset then go to the location option in the menu. It will ask you for country then city. Ignore this. Press the button with the Celestron logo. It will change it to asking for specific latitude and longitude.

[mysteriousnights]

1 minute ago, Filroden said:

If it is a Celestron handset then go to the location option in the menu. It will ask you for country then city. Ignore this. Press the button with the Celestron logo. It will change it to asking for specific latitude and longitude.

ty i will try it now

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

You should forget the cables for the moment. You can re-set the location in the handset. I'll assume that both telescopes have Nexstar handsets - if not, please tell us.

To set location try Menu button/Scope Setup/Setup time-site. You can set it either by city or by Lat/Long.  Northampton is 52.2405° N, 0.9027° W or 52° 14' 25.7244'' N and 0° 54' 9.5616''  You can round the numbers off to enter them.  Selecting "Birmingham (UK)" will give a slightly different result.

You can direct the telescope to a RA/Dec by the handset: Menu button/Goto RA/Dec.  A hint: to enter + or - for the declination, use the scroll buttons 6&9 and then press Enter.

[mysteriousnights]

4 minutes ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

You should forget the cables for the moment. You can re-set the location in the handset. I'll assume that both telescopes have Nexstar handsets - if not, please tell us.

To set location try Menu button/Scope Setup/Setup time-site. You can set it either by city or by Lat/Long.  Northampton is 52.2405° N, 0.9027° W or 52° 14' 25.7244'' N and 0° 54' 9.5616''  You can round the numbers off to enter them.  Selecting "Birmingham (UK)" will give a slightly different result.

You can direct the telescope to a RA/Dec by the handset: Menu button/Goto RA/Dec.  A hint: to enter + or - for the declination, use the scroll buttons 6&9 and then press Enter.

guys ty for your advice i have done everything you have asked albeit lats and longs it doesnt give me that option on both handsets,yes they are nexsatr handsets  yes date and time yes location then the option for 1-2 star alignment or solar system etc etc  but no correct slew to selected celestial object its frustrating for me as much as im sure frustrating for you guys hearing it.

[Cornelius Varley]

3 minutes ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

You should forget the cables for the moment. You can re-set the location in the handset. I'll assume that both telescopes have Nexstar handsets - if not, please tell us.

To set location try Menu button/Scope Setup/Setup time-site. You can set it either by city or by Lat/Long.  Northampton is 52.2405° N, 0.9027° W or 52° 14' 25.7244'' N and 0° 54' 9.5616''  You can round the numbers off to enter them.  Selecting "Birmingham (UK)" will give a slightly different result.

You can direct the telescope to a RA/Dec by the handset: Menu button/Goto RA/Dec.  A hint: to enter + or - for the declination, use the scroll buttons 6&9 and then press Enter.

The handset requires the coordinates in degrees, minutes and seconds, not decimals. The coordinates also have to entered as longitude and then latitude. The centre of Northampton is 000 54 03 W , 52 14 12 N.

[mysteriousnights]

its great you give me lats and longs it really is,like i said thanks for the help but absolutely no good to me if i dont have the option to enter thats what the frustrating part is