Slewing incorrectly

[Ewee]

Hi all. Very new to this hobby, though have had the scope a few years but not set up. 

I have a Celestron Slt130 with Starsense align. After a second night of failed alignment, last night I finally got the successful message alignment successful... or words to that effect. I was quite elated as I spent a few hours setting up, collimation the laser, then the scope and felt quite pleased with myself and excited for a visit to the planets. However, when i chose the star to calibrate the scope to starsense, things started to go wrong..the scope slewed in completely the wrong direction, roughly 150 degrees horizontally and below the horizon. Vega was my first choice,same thing with Arctus (I think it was called that, apologies if not).. I gave up in the end and c went to bed annoyed as it was a great night for it. I'm wondering what my next move should be. It seems Starsense is fine as the platesolving was OK. Just start again maybe and hope, or more specifically eliminate errors I am currently unaware of? 

(I'm in the UK btw, Swindon. When I put in the time, I used West Europe, bst. If I used Central Europe, I had failure. This of course might be the issue and coincidental of a failure elsewhere)

Many thanks

 

Neil. 

 

[M40]

Hello Ewee and welcome to the site 👍 I can't help with the Celestron but I am sure someone who can will be along soon. It does sound like the classic challenge that I and many others have at the start of things, mine was down to setting the location and time correctly and I found the mount mechanical home position was the one causing my challenges. All the best.

[happy-kat]

Hi

If you need to enter a date it would be mm dd yy American format

[Varavall]

2 hours ago, Ewee said:

the scope slewed in completely the wrong direction, roughly 150 degrees horizontally and below the horizon

Hi

I had this once with my HEQ5 Pro mount. The problem was to do with the park position. I used a custom position to park the scope, but when I restarted from park the following night what happened to you happened to me. The problem was the mount hadn't recorded my custom position and it assumed it was parked in it's home position (pointing to pole star-ish). I was using a laptop connected via the hand controller RJ11 port. When I connected via EQMOD problem went away. Just a thought.

[Ewee]

Oh, already a few things to try. Fingers crossed for a few more nice weekends... Thanks all.. 

[michael8554]

"last night I finally got the successful message alignment successful.    when i chose the star to calibrate the scope to starsense, things started to go wrong."

Does this mean the successful alignment wasn't carried out using StarSense ?

Michael

 

 

[malc-c]

Based on Synta's normal approach, if the mount requires details of where it is, normally the long / lat co-ordinates are in degrees / hours and minutes and not a digital equivalent.  Time should be entered in as UT or GMT and select the option to use daylight saving of +1 hour 

[Cosmic Geoff]

Yes, the Starsense can be tricky...  If you have the original Nexstar handset, try using that instead to verify the problems are with the Starsense and not your choice of settings (location, date format, time zone (the time zone should be Greenwich/UK/zero) daylight saving currently Yes.)

With the Starsense you need to pick a home (start) position (I use: telescope pointing due South and horizontal) and use that each night. 

The date format is mmddyy..  You need to enter a geographical location at some point (read the manual).  Other details are as per the manual.  I should point out that there is an error in some of the user manuals in the paragraphs describing how to do the initial alignment with a star. (Calibrate Center). After paragraph 2, an instruction to press Align is missing.

In poor conditions, the Starsense can appear to work, but get a completely wrong-headed result which becomes obvious when you try to use it.

You can also skip the plate-solving altogether by using the option to align on a visible planet, like a regular Nexstar GoTo. Most useful when looking at the planet is all you wanted to do.

[Carbon Brush]

A suggestion to make things easier?
Set up during the day. It can be cloudy!
Presumably you know where north is.
Use a separate computer/tablet/whatever with any 'sky map' type of programme.
Go through your setup/startup and alignment choosing stars that are above the horizon in daylight.
If you have an angle gauge of some description, that will help, but is not necessary.

Compare the approximate direction and tilt on the scope with what your map claims.
If it is near enough, you have things right.
If it is about 15deg out, or 1/24 of a full rotation, it is something related to daylight saving or time zone.
If it is wildy out, it is something to do with date entry. 10/03/22 or 03/10/22. would that be March 10th? October 3rd?
Quite few of the astro kit makers seem to think all the world uses US date format, the reality being it is restricted to one of our former colonies🤣
Try the alignment tomorrow on Aug 8th and you won'y notice if you get the date format wrong😁

Good luck.

David.

 

[michael8554]

Meade uses the format  "10th August 2022"  - simples.

Michael

[Ewee]

Thanks all, last night I had success, but..............!

It was largely a success and feel I have made progress as I went through the whole procedure once again, taking on-board some of the suggestions here. I used Arcturus as my calibration star and this went well. Once the Starsense Align and the telescope was calibrated, I slewed randomly and then used the handset to find Arcturus again, and it found it nicely. I then tried looking for a planet using the handset, however, I only had a choice of Mercury or Pluto listed.......I'm wondering if it's because they were the only things visible at that time based on my location and time. I'm not sure if that's how Celestron Nextstar / Starsense works. I thought other planets would be visible, but I'm a complete novice, I have to admit. Secondly, when I tried to look at either of those (Pluto or Mercury) by hitting enter, I had an error message regarding slew limits, so I tried the Star Vega, here it went quite wrong and slewed somewhere random. Arghh. I gave up at this point! I seem to be progressing slowly but now need to overcome these hiccups.

1, Does the handset only give you items that are visible at the time / place etc?

2, Do I need to adjust slew limits manually....?

 

Thanks every one....

[Budgie1]

It's been a while since I've used my Celestron StarSence but I believe it will only list targets which are visible at the time. The slew limits are there to stop the scope colliding with the mount at some angles, so careful if you go adjusting them manually.

Before I go out I tend to plan what I want to target that night and use some free software called Stellarium. This allows you to input your exact location and will show you what's visible to you now, but also allow you to fast forward to see what's rising above the horizon later in the night. Well worth a look if you don't have it already.