Frustrated newbie

[Pinkbirdactual]

Hi, my name is Danny and I'm struggling.. I have a celestron nexstar 130slt with go to mount. Last night I finally got clear skies after a week of anticipation.. took my telescope out did the sky align and was successful according to the HC. The problem is when I told it to slew to Saturn it took my to an empty spot in the sky north east horizon.. all I saw was dots. I then asked it to slew to deneb because I was getting frustrated and didn't want the night to be a total waste. Instead of deneb it slew to anturas, or who knows at this point. Sry for spelling I'm very green. I checked stellirum afterwards and confirmed that the alignment was very wrong as Saturn should be above the Southern horizon not the north east, also deneb should have been east but the scope slew to the south.. I'm very lost now. Tonight weather permitting I will do some manual searching but I paid for a go to. What am I doing wrong? According to the HC my 3 star sky align was a success..

[Davey-T]

Hi and welcome to SGL.

Sounds like a time issue, double check all your settings, triple check probably because you can stare at something and still not see the problem.

Dave

[Pinkbirdactual]

The time issue could be it, it ask for exact seconds, using my phone I try to sync on a time, but the HC said success.. not sure if being off by a second or two is a major issue, or is it?

[hadyn42]

Hello Danny

Try not to get too frustrated.

I take it that you  have put your correct coordinates into your handset by putting in the proper numbers and of course your timezone figures. I can be very annoying putting in the right figures in the wrong order so to speak!

I hope someone who has a telescope like yours comes on here to help you.

Best regards,

Hadyn - Isle of Man

 

 

 

 

[Davey-T]

Have a watch of this.

Dave

[valleyman]

What power supply are you using.

These mounts are a nightmare if they are not getting the full 12v they need.

If you are using the 8x1.5v batteries they need to be new ones. Also using Rechargeable ones is a NO NO as they do not recharge to the full charge needed.

 

I always use a 240/12v converter and run a supply from the house,(But not in the rain).

I go along with making sure all the info about location time etc is correct.

The Celestron Nextstar is a good bit of kit. So am sure it will all go OK next time you try.

 

Good Luck

[newbie alert]

Somethings a bit wrong...make sure that the date is in the right format.. month,day, year ..remember daylight saving...with the star alignment make sure the stars that are chosen are the stars that they're ment to be..so choose the bright ones..vega,capella, etc..on a az mount I'm sure you don't have to start with the north celestrial pole as with a eq mount but I'm sure there are plenty on here with the same setup

[JOC]

It is very easy to get date wrong on the setup.  Get the app. Synscaninit 2 n your mobile and turn the phones GPS on whilst you setup.  This will give you all the details in right format for the setup.  Also make sure that the first time you try you don't have anything 'extra' on the telescope i.e. dew shields etc. I find my own telescope is incredibly sensitive to weight distribution and won't correctly drive vertically if I unbalance it too much.

[cloudsweeper]

Study the handbook carefully then be sure you have entered lat/long, date, and time correctly.

When aligning, it's better to use higher magnification, but when looking for something via GoTo (or otherwise), it's better to use the lowest mag you can.  (If you use high mag at this point you can easily fail to see your target.)

One other thing - until you find your feet, try a one-star (or planetary) alignment, and use GoTo on a nearby object.  It should be very close.  

Doug.

[Pinkbirdactual]

thanks for your suggestions. i was at work so i couldnt respond.. im home now.. im using a ac adapter that celestron sold me with the scope.. i have redone the set up twice, not sure how i could be getting time and date wrong but tonight i will redo it again.. i just got my scope a week ago, its my first and that pesky tropical storm is clouding up my sky for a week.. i live in charlotte nc, i was excited last night to see clear skies for a couple hours but it looks gloomy tonight.. anyways, ive been over every possible error i might have made.. next time im out there i will go over it step by step, human fallibility is probably the problem.. thanks again

[valleyman]

you don't have to wait until tonight.

Do you have Stellerium downloaded, it is free.

What I used to do is while indoors. open Stellerium. Then do a two star align. find a bright star somewhere close to the south and point the scope in that direction, it really does not matter if you are a few degrees out.

Then use Stellirium again and find a bright star some where to the east or west and again point in the general direction of that. Click align and it should say Scope Aligned.

Then look for a bright star in Stellerium somewhere to the north and send the scope to it. Hopefully it will go in that general direction. All done in daylight but it will test the scope and you are not doing it in the dark.

You have about 11 hours before it gets dark there so give it a try and get back to us.

If you continue to have problems send me a message on here and if you have Skype I will talk through the set up  with you as I have a Nextstar as well.

[Pinkbirdactual]

I do have stellerium... thanks I will try that after lunch

 

[Pinkbirdactual]

ok so I couldn't get the manual two star align to work, but I tried the auto two star and it worked.. I aligned regulus then sirius, I used my compass and stellerium.. I asked it to slew to Polaris and according to my compass it went to the north, I'm assuming the degree above the horizon would be off a little but it worked...

[ronin]

Data in these can be a problem, too easy to make a simple mistake, and for some reason that mistake seems to remain. So half expect to have to do a Reset from the menu.

Your Longitude should be about:   080  50 West

Your Latitude should be about:  35  12 North

You are on Eastern Time so that is:   UTC -5

I assume that NC operates DST so when asked that is On or Yes (not sure what it expects)

The usual problem is people talk of Lat and Long but the scope needs the values input as Long and Lat and people just miss this swap round. Many a UK scope has been told it is just above the equator in Northern Brazil. The other is that they are not sure about DST so answer No.

In general it is best to enter the location as a custom one via the handset try a Name of CNC then add the Long, Lat, Timezone yourself.

When powered up the handset should display the location data it is using, check that the right numbers are against the right "word".

Not sure what the manual says but level the mount as best you can, even if not totally necessary it reduces the errors that the scope needs to correct for.

Date and time format you should be familiar with as the date format is US style.

Your reply/post has appeared and if I read it right then something is a bit odd. Polaris should always be about 35 degrees above the horizon immaterial of the time of day. Your post reads that the scope is pointing just above the horizon. What Latitude does the handset display at power up?

[Pinkbirdactual]

80 56 w

35 15 n

this was an indoor alignment.. not sure the exact angle of the stars, I was just trying to see if I had my info correct 

[valleyman]

If Polaris is showing as 1 degree above horizon then there is something wrong, by my calculation that should make you just about on the Equater

It should be 35 degrees.

 

[Pinkbirdactual]

oh, no, no.. the scope was elevated slightly.. certainly not on the horizon.. I would say 35ish but I was indoors and its daytime.. I will recheck tonight with exact numbers... I was just trying to figure this darn thing out

 

ps I used city database not custom site... these are the two options

[valleyman]

City data base is fine if you are just observing.

Let us know how you get on.

[Pinkbirdactual]

so if I'm trying to film Jupiter, or take a pic of a binary star then I need more exact coordinates?

[ronin]

35ish is what it should be, just how I read it seemed to imply otherwise.

The "worst" aspect of all this is that you may find that it now works and never really know why.

Will warn you that going to a planet may be a little innacurate. Plantets have this habit of moving, so the scope have to calculate the position of them each time, a star/DSO etc is fixed and so it position is known accurately ahd it is simply looked up from a table.

The other planet aspect is that they also appear to move backwards, retrograde orbit, and I also suspect tha is the present situation. And I am not sure how well these scopes handle this aspect. So be aware that asking it to goto a planet could have inaccuracies.

Check the manual for performing a Sync action. This could improve the accuracy a bit.

The coordinates you give seem good enough, nothing is exact when doing this, and the values you give appear adaquate.

[JOC]

If you have one a mobile phone  running SynScanInit 2 should show all the necessary values in the correct format.  Don't forget the leading zero's if needed in the Lat and Long setup.  On mine you put in the Greenwich meantime and then add in an offset time value depending on how many hours you are distant too.  Also mine requires that the telescope alignment starts with the telescope aligned to Pole Star North (rather than compass North) so I have to find this and then lower the telescope to flat horizontal and then commence the alignment process from that start point.  Now my telescope is probably different to yours, but this sounds like something that maybe other scope types might have in common.  I had huge issues with calibration until someone in SGL pointed out that I had probably glossed over that instruction in the manual.

[Pinkbirdactual]

I got it working with the two star auto align.. thanks for the tips.. 

i have a new issue now lol, I want to take some simple short exposure shots of the sky, nothing too serious, 10 sec at most for now. My digital slr just shows a black screen no matter what ISO or exposure length. I focused on a street lamp nearly a half a mile away, but once I point it to the stars all I get is black screen. I've read up on a few techniques I'm going to try.. if anyone has any tips I'm all ears.

sry, I'm using a canon rebel t6, t ring adapter and the male end that slides into the scope.. no eye piece just straight camera to scope.. I have a Barlow but that didn't help. I'm looking into buying another adapter I can insert my eye piece into.. so for now it's just prime focus.. 

[Davey-T]

Jupiter should be visible in live view so I'd start with that.

While there make sure your RDF is aligned.

There is a setting somewhere in the menu to get maximum exposure on live view rather than the actual view.

Dave

Dave

[valleyman]

It might be worth while starting a new thread for this new issue. You will get lots of help then from the Astro mob.

 

Pat

[Pinkbirdactual]

Thanks