Skymax 127 Star Alignment Difficulty

[danos]

Hi all,

I bought a Skymax 127 on a goto mount and having a bit of difficulty with the initial setup when locating stars in the western sky (for star alignment) as I do not know what I am looking at. Even after reading the instructions I am still confused.

Any tips? Your help would be greatly appreciated!

[Arushin]

Hello and welcome,

I have recently bought the exact same scope so am new to goto as well. Luckily I have also had a 12" dob for the past 3 years so I had to learn where a few of the brighter stars were. To make life a lot easier download 'Stellarium' which is free and will show you exactly what you are looking at. It is also capable of guiding your mount from a laptop (something I managed to get working with the help of the fantastic people on this site). This is a good scope optically, although you need to be careful with the plastic fittings on the mount legs which can crack if you overtighten the stays. Stellarium can be setup to start at your exact location and time and will be really helpful during alignment. Invest in a button compass (about 99p) and stick it to the centre of the where the tray sits. Choose a leg to be 'North' and mark a white line on the raised bit of the accesory tray support near the leg. Line this up with your compass each session. I also have a mark on the base of the mount head and one on the cradle which I put on once I was aligned and then 'parked' the scope. Each time I screw the mount head on I align the two marks first so that the scope always starts from the same position. Another good trick is to mark the tripod leg positions on the ground if you are viewing from your garden. By always starting from the same point you should be able to align in no time.

I hope you understand all of this... if not, let me know and I will post some pics of what I've done. It works for me.

Tony

[danos]

Hi,

Thanks for the quick reply it has really helped. I already had Stellarium but didn't know you could hook it up to the laptop so thanks for that, it's a good tip. Funnily enough a compass was included with the telescope so I'll try that out too. It was a cloudy night last night so I couldn't get the scope out but if I have any problems tonight I'll be sure to let you know. Thanks for the advice.

Danos

[Capricorn]

I have an ETX, and Meade's have an additional step that I think should be applied to SW's. Simply set the tripod and scope up level and then point the scope tube North and level that. Then start your alignment.

The SW's have to determine the errors caused by the unit not being level and compensate for this. My view is that level means less compensation to be determined.

Also if the thing starts out pointing North then you find it simpler to determin exactly where East, West and South are.:D:D

Think presently that Arcturus is prominent in the West, Vega and Deneb are pretty much overhead.

A long focal length eyepiece helps, as in 32mm. Helps any alignment star fall into the field of view.