first light - Nexstar 8se

[martin_h]

After 3 days of waiting i finaly got it all out and into the garden!

Im new to all this so please bare with me. Everything was as it should be and as was advertised, the initial setup was a doddle (tripod,mount and scope) I set it up as the light was just fading and left it all out there to equalise for a couple of hours.

And now for the fun bit!!!! I set up for a sky align, inputting time, date, location etc, lined up on 3 bright stars....alignment failed...grrrrr At this point I must add that the finder scope is next to usless, both settings are wound to the stops and its still way out, I set it on jupiter and looking through the scope i can just see the glow just out of field, so for anything smaller its a waste of time. Anyway try again with alignment.....same result....fail!!!! Infact it failed 16 times.

So I tryed for a planet allignment - jupiter - but it wasnt in the selection list, so i assumed that Ive input the wrong lon,lat coords, after a quick check on the computer back out and start again, this time jupiter was in the list - sorted! but it wouldnt track it. so i looked for a planet in the seek list and it said the moon was there? so I asked it so look for it and the scope swang round an pointed straight up!!!!!! ho hum!

So after a few hours I settled for lookind at jupiter and manually tracking it... The scope came with a Opticstar PL-30C camera so i thought i'd try that, so after fixing it to the scope, drag the laptop out, find jupiter and away we go - not! hardly any of the software recognised the camera, it kept defaulting to the webcam on the lap top! anyway i managed to get 1 piece of software going - find jupiter again! get it all running and............ a 3 second video of jupiter and 3 moons before it all went out of field.

Conclusion... I dont realy have one yet, im sure it must be me doing something wrong, i was playing with it all till 4am and the end result was less than perfect, but i'll try again and let you know how i get on:icon_eek:

[MeerkatinBKK]

Hi Martin,

Sorry to hear of your mixed success, but glad you at least got a glimpse of Jupe.

How are you powering the mount? If it's using AAs, they're notorius for bad alignment.

Nick

[arad85]

The 8SE mounts track very accurately once you have star aligned them. I've had one and never had the problems you had last night. Most likely would be you've entered the date/time/location wrong. Things to remember:

• Date format is American - i.e. mm/dd/yy. This can catch you out in the first 12 days of the month!
  
• Enter your current local time, set your timezone to Universal Time (I think this is the choice) and then set Daylight Saving Time to ON
  
• Always power with something other than the AA batteries - either mains adaptor or power tank (although you will need a battery lead if you do this as the scope isn't supplied with one).
  

HTH....

[Bigwings]

Make sure the time is set accuratly as well.

I use one of the alarm clock gadgets that gets its radio signal from the atomic clock so I know its accurate.

When setup and aligned it keeps the object in field very well.

Keep trying and the results are worth it.

[martin_h]

thanks for the replys.....i read the reviews before i baught it...so got a mains power supply, i have power sockets in the garden so no problem there. I'm going to reset the memory to the factory defaults and try again...possibly tonight but as always depending on the weather

[Matthew.Blake]

I had difficulty when I first tried with a 6SE. I got it to do a skyalign when I made sure the stars were in 3 different quadrants of the sky.

[MeerkatinBKK]

I posted a fairly comprehensive (if I do say so myself!) guide to aligning the mount here - the 6 and 8 SE mount being the same model.

I do feel though that given the wild behaviour you experienced and that you're using mains power, that it sounds like a data entry problem. I think I've had fewer than 5 failed alignments in the 8 months or so I've owned the scope.

Good luck and let us know how you get on,

Nick

[gataki]

Hi,

I only have a humble Nexstar 102 SLT but I'm wondering if you are using a town for the location or the longitude and latitude. (I've just reread your post and see you are using long and lat - sorry missed that first time.)

If the latter, did you get North/South or East/West muddled up - I've done that sometimes on "YourSky" so of course planets, or the Sun and Moon show as being set when they are up or vice-versa.

It's the only thing I can think of that would cause this, given that we are after the 12th of the month!

My Nexstar tracks really accurately and very happily for hours, given half a chance! I love it!

Hope you get it sorted soon.

Liz

[martin_h]

HAHAHA....You know how you read instructions...but dont take it in.....well...Idiot of the month! longitude and latitude **** about face!!!!!!! just checked and it puts me just off the coast of africa...oops

[gataki]

just off the coast of africa

I know where I'd rather be right now - but seriously - I'm glad you've sorted it!

Liz

[MeerkatinBKK]

That's great news Martin! We've all done (and continue to do) similar things.

Looking forward to your revised "First Light".

Nick

[Deneb]

mmm, I think the goto system on these scopes are the same as the Skywatcher Goto's. After the initial setup of time, date, longitude, latitude & DST, i usually select my 1st star from the south using the 3 star alignment option. After that I have no problems aligning the next two stars & anything I want to image.

Can I just ask on those SE Mounts does it have latitude level, so you can tilt the mount to your prefered latitude angle ?

[martin_h]

mmm, I think the goto system on these scopes are the same as the Skywatcher Goto's. After the initial setup of time, date, longitude, latitude & DST, i usually select my 1st star from the south using the 3 star alignment option. After that I have no problems aligning the next two stars & anything I want to image.

Can I just ask on those SE Mounts does it have latitude level, so you can tilt the mount to your prefered latitude angle ?

No it doesn't