Goto Advice Needed

[Grant]

Hi everyone,

As mentioned elsewhere on the forums, I've not got my celestron gt mount (actually it's a tasco but same hardware) all sorted with my ST80, I've finally mastered the settings and can get it all aligned up but theres a couple of things I've noticed which I wanted to check with you guys.

First, when I enter the date/time/location etc.. it then slews to normally Arturus, which is usually pretty far out and I have to adjust the alignment quite alot to get it in center, then it slews to Altair where I have the same misalignment problem, I expected them to be a little out but I'm talking a fairly long way out, is this normal? Am I doing something wrong with my setup?

Once I have aligned it, it can then goto M31 and M32 spot on, Jupiter spot on and obviously the moon spot on but when I try M13 and M51 they're nowhere to be found, the trouble is, because I've never seen M13 and M51 through a telescope I'm not exactly sure what I should be seeing, I'm presuming a tiny bit of cotton whool but it's just not there, could it be they're too faint for my little ST80? Or could the goto be messing up for stuff thats quite high in the sky? Jupiter/M31 etc.. are fairly low.

Does anyone have any experience or tips with the GT mount to get the most out of it?

Thanks guys,

Grant

[GordonCopestake]

First port of call is Mike Swansons site he's put together quite a resource there. Take a look at this especially. The other place with bags of information is the CN nexstar forum, and especially the thread on alignment tips.

As for your problems, i found that i had to enter the date in american mm/dd/yy which at first i didn't click with. If you follow the rest of Mike Swanons alignment tips you should solve most of your problems. The other thing regarding your GOTO alignment is to choose stars either side of the meridian. I found that helped a lot with the acuracy. Plus a level mount also helps.

Hope this helps a little

[Grant]

Cheers Gordon, I had come across the Mike Swanson site before but not the cloudy nights stuff, most useful, just trawled through all 280+ threads in there and come across some interesting bits and pieces...

Many thanks,

Grant

[Saso]

With your scope you must see M13 and M51 but I don't know how polluted your sky is. M13 look more like Nebula in my 80 scope and in M51 I can see bright center but no details in spiral arms. I don't know anything about your mount so I can't help you there. I hope that you find where the problem is.

Saso