:( Could not align !

[Earl]

Grr

all evening and either broken cloud and when i did get a successful it was miles off...

Frustrated to say the least.

Is it me or does the selection of alignment stars on the Sky Watcher database suck compared to the Celestron one?

[MarkF]

I found the same, until I really, really worked hard at balancing the scopes especially with the cables which I taped together and routed down the middle of the scopes. Even now it leaves me scratching my head when it doesn't go where I expect, then I realise I left the finderscope off and it all needs rebalancing again.

[Ben Ritchie]

My EQ6 seems pretty good. The technique I use is to start in the normal home position, let it do the first slew (often miles off) and then release the clutches and manually point the OTA at the target star - a well-aligned finder helps immensely here. After that the second and third slews are near enough.

A crosshairs eyepiece seems to help a fair bit with getting alignment precise too.

Is it me or does the selection of alignment stars on the Sky Watcher database suck compared to the Celestron one?

It is a bit limited, especially if you don't have all-sky visibility, and has an annoying habit of picking alignment stars despite them being about 5 degrees above the horizon.

More of a problem IMO is that it uses names for the stars, and not their constellation - i'm a bit of an astro-geek, but I can't remember whether Sadalsuud is Alpha Aquarii or Beta Aquarii or what constellation Rasalhague is in.