Asking for help.

[Wulfrune]

I've been a member here for months now, but to be honest with you all, I've felt too embarrassed to ask for help, mainly because, like most things in my life, I can work things out for myself and I don't want to burden anyone with stuff which ultimately comes down to "RTFM", but I'm stuck and it's holding me and my hobby back.

About 18 months ago I purchased a Celestron 8se telescope and even though I'm disabled due to a bad motorbike accident where I lost the full use of one of my arms, I can still prep the telescope for work, however, what I can't seem to do is correctly set up the telescope for the auto tracker to work and it's led me to mothball my gear. 

I know there are countless "How to" videos that show you how, but I just keep getting it wrong and I've become disillusioned and discouraged.

I would ask, is there some kind soul who might consider helping me over this hurdle?  I live in Sutton, South London, but I'm willing to travel a reasonable distance to get help, should I be lucky enough to receive the offer of it.

I am a friendly guy, medically retired and married with 2 girls.

If there is someone who has the required knowledge and is willing to be a good samaritan, please get in touch with me.

And if nothing else, thank you for at least reading this far, I am grateful.

Kind regards

Steve.

[NGC 1502]

2 hours ago, Wulfrune said:

I've been a member here for months now, but to be honest with you all, I've felt too embarrassed to ask for help, mainly because, like most things in my life, I can work things out for myself and I don't want to burden anyone with stuff which ultimately comes down to "RTFM", but I'm stuck and it's holding me and my hobby back.

About 18 months ago I purchased a Celestron 8se telescope and even though I'm disabled due to a bad motorbike accident where I lost the full use of one of my arms, I can still prep the telescope for work, however, what I can't seem to do is correctly set up the telescope for the auto tracker to work and it's led me to mothball my gear. 

I know there are countless "How to" videos that show you how, but I just keep getting it wrong and I've become disillusioned and discouraged.

I would ask, is there some kind soul who might consider helping me over this hurdle?  I live in Sutton, South London, but I'm willing to travel a reasonable distance to get help, should I be lucky enough to receive the offer of it.

I am a friendly guy, medically retired and married with 2 girls.

If there is someone who has the required knowledge and is willing to be a good samaritan, please get in touch with me.

And if nothing else, thank you for at least reading this far, I am grateful.

Kind regards

Steve.

 

 

So sorry to hear of your problems.   A way of getting help might be to contact a local astronomy club and ask for help. Almost all astronomy clubs I’ve had contact with have been a friendly bunch.

 Hoping you will find a way forward.

Best wishes from Ed.

 

[bosun21]

Have you done an alignment process when setting up the telescope? The telescope needs to know where it's pointing to track correctly. Tracking movements differ from South/North to East/West for example as East/West will have more vertical movement. You can do either a one star alignment or solar system alignment on the moon for example. This although not the most accurate for go to will at least track whichever target you point the telescope at. I suggest you read the manual on alignment and if you don't have one you can find a copy online. Good luck.

[Knighty2112]

I have the same mount and scope, but sadly don’t live anywhere near you to assist at your home. When setting up the goto mount I always level the base by unscrewing the goto base from the tripod and using a small boat level. Some say you don’t need to do this, but I always get much better goto accuracy when doing this. Make sure your location is set in the mount correctly. Also, when entering date make sure you use the US way of entering dates mm/date/year. And don’t forget to tell the mount that we are in daylight saving time currently. A 2 star align works well, but I’ve also just set it with a planetary alignment and it works quite well too as long as you view first with a lower powered EP to make sure objects will be in the field of view of the EP before you put in a more powerful EP to view with.

Edited April 29 by Knighty2112

[Elp]

As mentioned be sure to use the lowest power eyepiece (largest number), the scope has a relatively huge focal length, a lot of the time it might look like you're looking into blank space if you're not actually looking at something. Try to have the base part of the mount (or tripod top) level as azimuth movements (left-right) need to be level with the horizon, not sure on powered off north alignment with your mount but before I power on my azgti (using it in alt az mode) it needs to be pointed at true north or near enough with the scope parallel to the horizon but also pointing north before I switch the power on. Then do a minimum 2 star alignment, 3 will be better as mathematically 3 points is more accurate though you might find the former sufficient.

You can also defocus the star within your eyepiece so it's a doughnut to better judge it being centred in your eyepiece when aligning.

Also use a stellarium on your phone (like Stellarium or Sky Safari) to cross reference to what you're actually seeing with your own eyes and the alignment objects you use to align the scope (when you're looking through an eyepiece you'll loose your orientation quite easily as you'll see far more stars rather than the bright main ones you're trying to align to).

Edited April 29 by Elp

[PhilB61]

Unfortunately I'm too far away to offer any direct help but if you could describe the issue in more detail either myself or others may be able to offer some "remote" assistance.  

For example, are you able to get the mount powered up and slew around using the handset? or is it unresponsive to any commands. Or is it just that Goto's and tracking are not accurate enough. A bit more info and I'm sure we can point you in the right direction.

I've owned and used a couple of Celestron Nexstar mounts and found the Nexstar Resource website managed by Mike Swanson to be a great source of information and help. 

[Wulfrune]

1 hour ago, NGC 1502 said:

 

 

So sorry to hear of your problems.   A way of getting help might be to contact a local astronomy club and ask for help. Almost all astronomy clubs I’ve had contact with have been a friendly bunch.

 Hoping you will find a way forward.

Best wishes from Ed.

 

Sadly Ed, my local Astronomy club based in North Cheam has not responded to over half a dozen enquiry emails from the link to their membership options on their home page.  I took it as they were either full or maybe they didn't want noobs sooting up their club, not replying to 6 emails I felt was a bit excessive.

Hopefully, someone might come to my rescue here, time will tell

Kind regards

Steve

[Wulfrune]

I do thank all of you for your replies, it's better than I expected, but the issues remain, I've tried all the "Read this / Watch this" options and it hasn't worked for me.  I really do appreciate the fact that you guys are trying to help me, but I need to hope that instead of being told to "Read this / Watch this" I'm at a point where I feel I need to be actually shown how it's done.

Kudos to you all for taking the time out of your day to answer my call.  Thank you all.

 

Kind regards

Steve

Edited April 29 by Wulfrune

[Elp]

You don't necessarily need to wait until a clear night to test, if you use the method I described with a stellarium in hand you can test it during daylight (obviously cap on front of scope) and see if it slews in the general vicinity of your chosen stars. I've done this many times to check the equipment is working prior to a nights session.

[Cosmic Geoff]

I have the same mount and scope, but I don't live near you. I might be able to help if you can clarify at what point things go wrong. 

You need to set the correct location (London or the latitude and longitude in the correct format will work.) Then set the correct time and date (in US format, not UK).  Then do an alignment to the sky. There are several options, the simplest being one-star and Solar System align (too bad that no planets are available in the evening just now).  The alignment involves doing an initial aiming with a finder, then coarse and fine adjustments at the eyepiece.  You do need to complete the sequence by pressing ALIGN for each alignment star, otherwise the mount will not track.

I suggest you try a one-star alignment and see how you get on.

The Nexstar system is easier to use than the rival Skywatcher Synscan, and I am sure that when you get it to work you'll be smacking your forehead. 🙄

[happy-kat]

looking on here there might be another astro club local enough for you to be able to try

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/locator.html

I'm not a nexstar user but I have tested things out inside by setting up as if outside even with out a telescope attached to the mount by setting up level and north and then just agreeing the star is where the mount is pointing to get a feel for things

good luck with your reach out

Edited April 29 by happy-kat

[Carbon Brush]

48 minutes ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

Then set the correct time and date (in US format, not UK).

You may be surprised to hear how many people have been confused by USA date format.
03/10/24. It that Oct 3rd? March 10th?

 

[AstroMuni]

3 hours ago, Carbon Brush said:

You may be surprised to hear how many people have been confused by USA date format.
03/10/24. It that Oct 3rd? March 10th?

mm/dd/yy should make it easier to understand and cause less confusion
🙂

Edited April 29 by AstroMuni

[bosun21]

4 hours ago, Wulfrune said:

I do thank all of you for your replies, it's better than I expected, but the issues remain, I've tried all the "Read this / Watch this" options and it hasn't worked for me.  I really do appreciate the fact that you guys are trying to help me, but I need to hope that instead of being told to "Read this / Watch this" I'm at a point where I feel I need to be actually shown how it's done.

Kudos to you all for taking the time out of your day to answer my call.  Thank you all.

 

Kind regards

Steve

I have sent you a message with offer of help.

[Wulfrune]

Thanks to everyone who kindly took the time to reply, you're a decent bunch of guys, fair play to the lot of you.

Thankfully, Bosun21 has kindly offered a little one on one tuition and for the time being, we can consider the matter closed.

I thank all of you m(_ _)m

 

Quote

In the words of David Bowman as he investigates The Monolith and says "The thing's hollow-it goes on forever-and-oh my God-it's full of stars!.