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I currently have the Celestron Nexstar 8SE, looking to get into astrophography. That mount is giving me more problems than it is worth. Sometimes it works great, then the next night it can’t align to save its life. Have the GPS connected, correct date and time, pointed North, and leveled. Also have the skysense hooked up, it finds over 100 stars on the first of four points and plates solves........then the second point finds 100+ stars and cannot plate solve! Wasted 2 great nights trying everything possible to get it to work but no dice. I have connected all devices to CFM and updated to latest drivers. Oh yeah.....on the second point of alignment, the altitude of the OTA goes past 90 degrees straight up?, so I manually return it to level position with the hand controller and point it to the north again, start over deleting the previous alignment and it does the same on the second point. Ready to throw it in the garbage.
A quick search on YouTube found some people have problems with the mount slipping, or skipping, so I removed the plastic covers and made sure the bolts were not too tight or too loose. That does not seem to be the problem as it doesn’t bind or stop when I put my hand on it while it’s moving.
Maybe an encoder issue? Is there a way to tell?
Thanks in advance for any inputs.
OTAs: Nexstar 8SE, Radian Raptor, Celestron RASA 11, TPO ultra wide
Mounts: Ioptron CEM70G, Ioptron CEM 40
Cameras: ZWO 1600mm Pro, 533 MC pro, 2600mm Pro
Guide Cameras: ZWO 120MM Mini, ZWO 174MM
Guide Scopes: Orion 60mm, ZWO mini guide scope
ZWO ASIAIR Pro
Eyepieces: Celestron Luminos 31mm, 19mm, Explore Scientific 4.5mm 82 Degree, Celestron - SkySync Telescope GPS, Celestron f/6.3 Reducer, Celestron Luminous 2-Inch 2.5x ,Barlow Lens, Dielectric Star Diagonal 2" with Twist Lock, Celestron StarSense Automatic Alignment.
How does the mount perform without the starsense connected? Many people have complained about the lack of consistent behavior from it.
Gabrielle See Far Sticks: Elita 103/1575, AOM FLT 105/1000, Bresser 127/1200 BV, Nočný stopár 152/1200, Vyrobené doma 70/700, Stellarvue NHNG DX 80/552, TAL RS 100/1000, Vixen SD115s/885 EQ: TAL MT-1, Vixen SXP, SXP2, AXJ, AXD Az/Alt: AYO Digi II, Stellarvue M2C, Argo Navis encoders on both Tripods: Berlebach Planet (2), Uni 28 Astro, Report 372, TAL factory maple, Vixen ASG-CB90, Vixen AXD-TR102 Diagonals: Astro-Physics, Baader Amici, Baader Herschel, iStar Blue, Stellarvue DX, Tak prism, TAL, Vixen Eyepieces: Antares to Zeiss (1011110) The only culture I have is from yogurt