Second_light Nexstar 8se

[martin_h]

After the disaster of my first attempt, here is the second go.

Inital setup was as before and all went well enterd the data and alligned the 3 required stars and ........fail! Never mind start again, alligned the stars and BINGO!!! So for my first test i selected the Planet option and hit the Moon, the motors fired up and away it went 180degs in the wrong direction..Grrr.

I switched it off and restarted from scratch (Ive found that you have to hit the buttons on the keypad dead centre or they dont register) this time it worked 1st time and swang straight to the moon. The image needed tweeking a tad to centre it but that was no problem, I left it to its own devices and went for a cuppa - I needed one after all that - and after 15mins or so came out to check on things and it had tracked perfectly!!

The 'scope came with an OPTICSTAR PL-130C video camera, so I decided to give that a go, not having done any imaging before I was a bit at a loss to working the software but after playing for a bit managed to capture a few images.

So all in all not a bad evening, once the beast is setup its childs play to use.

[Mikea]

Glad it worked better this time - it will all become second nature soon. My Skywatcher GOTO would set off in the wrong direction sometimes, but after buying a decent 12V sealed lead-acid battery, it behaved itself. Now to plan your third session!