NexStar 127 SLT Misalignment

[Chris1234]

Hello all, I have recently gotten into star gazing and have a NexStar 127 SLT. I have used it only a few times due too lack of availability. However that quickly changed with the pandemic. I use sky align to align it properly, yes it takes a while to get it set up but once it does it is amazing. These last few weeks however have proved difficult, according to the telescope I can correctly align everything with no problems. However I wasn't able to see anything when I pointed to an object that the telescope pointed itself to after I made a selection on the keypad. After about 3 tries I attempted to just point it at the moon just to see if it was working, but it pointed completely straight up when the moon was obviously not there(on a night with a full moon it was near the horizon). I now have know idea what could be causing the problem because I had set it up just like I did before with the same location and it worked then but not now. The only thing I can think of is possibly the alignment scope not being aligned with the telescope itself. I then thought that it still shouldn't have such a drastic change in the direction it points. Wouldn't mind a few suggestions, looks like it will be cloudy for the next week or so to give me time to fix this. Thanks.

[happy-kat]

Hi

Day light saving might have changed since the last time you used it. Though I use skywatcher goto rather than celestron so I'm not familiar with if you have that as a user question on your setup.

Edited May 10, 2020 by happy-kat

[johninderby]

Make sure you have entered the time in US Format MM/DD/YYYY (month and day are switched)

Edited May 10, 2020 by johninderby

[Cosmic Geoff]

My Nexstar 127 SLT has been relatively trouble free. Asides from "wrong input data" a possible cause is low battery voltage or bad connection at the power plug. It is much better to use an external power pack rather than using internal dry batteries.

If you know your bright stars, it is quicker to use an auto 2-star align, and this seems just as accurate as the skyalign.