Celestron Alignment GPS Coordinates

[BRUN]

When i had my Skywatcher dob i had an app on my phone which gave me all the info i needed to enter at setup, but now ive switched to a Celestron its asking for GPS coordinates but they dont seem in the same format as on the Skywatcher, can anyone help ?

It also seems to have a lot of different ways to do alignment, is their a consensus on which is the best to choose ? At least one of them was asking me to centre an object but didnt actually say what it wanted me to align which really confused me

First hour with the new scope and i cant even get aligned lol

[wookie1965]

https://www.gps-coordinates.net/gps-coordinates-converter

Try this

[JG777]

Or this http://www.latlong.net/

You want decimal degrees 

I personally found auto 2 star the most reliable. 

[ronin]

Some go with decimal values and some with degrees and minutes, also Longitude can be +/- or East/West.

Victoria Pk St Helens is:

Lat = 53.45 N  =  53  27" N

Long = -2.75 =  2.75 W = 2  45" W

Timezone will be UTC 0

Values are best if accurate but for Lat you can use 53.5 to make the numbers easier it will be easily accurate enough. So minutes value is half of  60, (=30). If you are on the NW bit then you can likely use Lat = 53.5N (53  30N) and Long = -2.75 (2  45W)

Careful when entering values, we think of Lat/Long, the scope is likely to want Long/Lat - common error.

DST is still on, just the time might be Summer but I have yet to see anything that could be termed "summer".

[BRUN]

just watched a youtube video and i think the 2 star auto does sound the best, and thanks for the gps info guys, disappointed as id waited and waited for a clear night and then couldnt get it aligned, the weather has been horrible lately and im up early most mornings so a good weekend is the only time i can use it really

think ill have a play with it indoors today to get myself more prepared

ive since found out that one of the options i was playing with was sky align and thats the reason it wasnt giving me any star names as apparently it doesnt need them lol, i dont think ill be using that one

[newbie alert]

If you have star walk app,In the settings it will give you the co ordinates of your location if you have the GPS switched on..

I use synscaninit 2 for time/date in the right format and gives you the location of Polaris ..it also gives you the GPS co ordinates but my scope went off in the wrong direction so I changed it back,so I wouldn't recommend using the GPS..

[JG777]

7 hours ago, BRUN said:

just watched a youtube video and i think the 2 star auto does sound the best, and thanks for the gps info guys, disappointed as id waited and waited for a clear night and then couldnt get it aligned, the weather has been horrible lately and im up early most mornings so a good weekend is the only time i can use it really

think ill have a play with it indoors today to get myself more prepared

ive since found out that one of the options i was playing with was sky align and thats the reason it wasnt giving me any star names as apparently it doesnt need them lol, i dont think ill be using that one

You can practice alignments indoors ,doesn't have to be accurate just use a star and point to the general position followed by whichever auto 2nd star you choose, it helps to get a feel for things. Was looking at my notes so input is Longitude W ( or east depending) followed by latitude N in degrees minutes and seconds. UTC 0 and yes to daylight savings until the clocks shift back next month. Your coordinates will be sound for about a 50 mile radius but I admit I change mine even if I go 5 miles up the road! Just ensue your date format is correct US format and time is accurate. Put a decent distance between your 2 stars and choose ones above 30° and below 70° and preferably not at the same altitude. There is an android app called map coordinates that gives accurate info as well as the aforementioned Synscaninit.

Skyalign needs 3 bright stars,I believe the first two are the main alignment and the 3rd verifies the other 2 are correct. So yes you do not need the names of the stars but it only works if the stars chosen are actually in the computers database. I found Skyaligns success rate to be about 40% whereas auto 2 star about 95% , further to that Skyalign is no more accurate than auto 2 star once aligned.

 

[BRUN]

cheers, i tried it today and it seemed to work fine, so fingers crossed next time ill actually be able to view something lol !