I'm a Newbie - and I need help!

[tothebraveandfaithful]

Hello stargazers!

After years of promising myself, I finally invested in my first telescope. It is a Skywatcher refractor telescope with AZ Synscan firmware.

It's all very impressive, but so far I haven't been able to do anything! This is because I live in Italy, and the manual that came with the scope is in Italian, and I can't quite follow it. I emailed customer services at Skywatcher twice to request an english version of the manual, but they have not even replied.

My main problem is that I can't calibrate the Synscan device with the mount correctly. It asks me to enter my location with degrees East and North. My manual (in Italian) tells me I am at 41N 25 and -10 E 38. It is impossible to enter these coordinates on the Synscan! Secondly, everytime I turn on the unit, it has frozen my settings where they were when I last turned it off, so I need to enter the time and GMT+1 etc all over again.

I know these are probably laughably simple things, but I really am clueless when it comes to looking at the night sky! I know I will get better once I start seeing things, and usually I can follow a manual (once it is in English), but a little help to get me started would be very much appreciated.

Thanks!

[brantuk]

Hi Tothebrave

Try the pdf on this link - I think it'll have what you want:

http://www.beevo.com/Downloads/Synscan%20V3.pdf

Welcome to the group

[Capricorn]

Also try:

http://www.skywatchertelescope.net

Skywatcher site, try support then locate the manual you want.

Are you really GMT+1 ?

It looks wrong to me. (But I don't know why)

Skywatchers also have the co-ordinates entered as Long then Latitude. So the East one gets put in first.

You will be 41.42 N and -10.63 E (The values you state are degrees and minutes, if I recall the scope wants degrees in decimal form)

[tothebraveandfaithful]

That's fantastic, thanks!

[ollypenrice]

GMT plus 1 sounds right to me. I'm not too far from the Italian border here and that's my zone.

Olly

[david o]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Can't add to the good advice you've received already I'm afraid.

[Brendan of Borg]

Hello and welcome. Seems like the good folk here have rallied to the cause and conquered confusion! Well done guys!