TheSkySearchers

Hi everyone,

Not sure if this is the appropriate place to post this or not. I have a mount issue.

I am not sure what my mounts model is, first off.

Here’s what happened, I was out tonight stargazing, and I was attempting to photograph Uranus and Neptune.

I aligned the telescope with a 2 star align to Betelgeuse and Capella, then I tested the alignment by having the telescope going to the Orion Nebula. Success, it showed up dead center. Then I tested going to a planet. I input Jupiter, and the telescope moved to point to Jupiter.

Everything was good, but Jupiter wasn’t in the field of view. I looked through the finder scope, the telescope was WAY off.

This is where it gets interesting. I got the RA and DEC of where the telescope was saying Jupiter was at. It was as follows:

22h 24m 26s
-11 00’ 08”

I then manually pointed to Jupiter and got the real RA and DEC. It was:

22h 16m 51s
-11 25’ 05”

Now, the interesting part. I decided to do some math. I subtracted 00h 08m 25s from the RA, and I decided to add -00 25’ 03” to the DEC. I manually inputted the RA and DEC with these changes, and it went straight to Jupiter.

Now, what is wrong with my mount? Why is it going to deep space objects perfectly, but not planets? Can it be fixed?

Jared

Planets can be a bit hard for the HC programming to get perfect. A small moving target compared to a larger DSO.
It is a common issue with many mounts.
A three star alignment and a couple of calibration stars may help correct the issue or at least get it in the FOV.

If you post a image of your mount we can most likely tell you what it is.

Thank you for getting back. Telescope is put away right now, and it’s late. I’ll get the picture tomorrow morning.

I don’t know if my telescope can do a three star alignment or not. As for calibration stars, I will check.

I know you're going to say but how could they have changed. Trust me sometimes mounts do squirrely things. Your issues sounds like either a time or location issue so next time out double-check that the clock is accurate to at least 10 seconds and the location is accurate at least your closest city and then see what happens.

JayTee wrote: ↑Mon Jan 17, 2022 4:06 am I know you're going to say but how could they have changed. Trust me sometimes mounts do squirrely things. Your issues sounds like either a time or location issue so next time out double-check that the clock is accurate to at least 10 seconds and the location is accurate at least your closest city and then see what happens.

Good morning!

I always double check the time and date when I go out. It’s always accurate. The location is my home city, only 1 mile away from the spot I go to.

If it was the location and/or the time, then I wouldn’t be able to go to deep space objects, but I am able to go to those.

I’ll still double check it, though.

As for the mount picture, sorry for procrastinating it, but I need to do some other stuff this morning first.

Jared

Here is a picture of my mount.

I have an update for you all also. I double checked the location, and the location is accurate.

I reset the time every time I power on the telescope, and I make it accurate to the second.

I did, however, find an option called skyalign, which uses three stars. Maybe I’ll try that next time I go out and see if it makes a difference.

That appears to be a GT mount, a slightly stripped down version of the SLT.

Skyalign works well, I usually use it with mine though there are a few things you can do to improve the accuracy of these.
Do you have the manual for it?

A picture of mine after a few modifications

No manual, I bought it off eBay for $30 a long time ago, Believe it or not. It was a gambit, but it works well, so I was surprised.

I’ll definitely try skyalign when sky conditions permit.

Last but not least, a reticle eyepiece will give you your most accurate alignment. This is actually an important piece of gear for go to telescopes. The good thing is they are not very expensive. Make sure you get one with an illuminated reticle.

Also Jared, it's time to develop a signature for yourself so that we can see on a quick glance what equipment you have.

JayTee wrote: ↑Mon Jan 17, 2022 5:56 pm Last but not least, a reticle eyepiece will give you your most accurate alignment. This is actually an important piece of gear for go to telescopes. The good thing is they are not very expensive. Make sure you get one with an illuminated reticle.

Also Jared, it's time to develop a signature for yourself so that we can see on a quick glance what equipment you have.

@JayTee i’ve actually been struggling to figure out how to do that. Could you tell me how to add a signature?

By a reticle eyepiece, is that the same as a finder scope?

@Jnicholes
Here you go, there may be a couple of minor differences the essentials are the same.
I will send you a PM with some tips on how to improve the accuracy a bit with these.

Jnicholes wrote: ↑Mon Jan 17, 2022 5:58 pm By a reticle eyepiece, is that the same as a finder scope?

A reticle eyepiece is also refereed to as a crosshair eyepiece, you can find them online.

Look on the upper right for the words gallery and glossary and then look for the little person icon. Click on the little person icon and a drop down will open up, select user control panel. This is what we call the UCP. Click on user control panel, a new window will open up. On that window look for the tabs that say preference, profile, excetera, you want to click on profile. A new window opens up, look on the left side and you'll see edit signature, click on that button. It will open up another window, scroll down a little bit and you will see a text box, that's where you build your signature.

Go up to your name and click on it, click on profile, then edit profile.
On the left side of the screen there should be a column with edit signature in it.
Click on that, make your signature then click submit at the bottom.

Ok, I think I got the signature. How does it look?

Looks great.

Thanks.

Is this a reticle eyepiece? It’s got a light pointer and it is accurate as a finder scope.

No, that's your red dot finder or what we call an RDF. I'll find a picture of a reticle eyepiece and show it to you.

Here you go.

Well, I think I found the problem. When I show you this picture, keep in mind that I aligned to Capella and Betelgeuse, which are on the same side of the sky.
The part of the mount that attaches to the tripod somehow got bent, making the entire telescope rotate unevenly.

It makes sense that it was accurate for the side of the sky with the alignment stars, which were Capella and Betelgeuse. That’s why I could reach the Orion nebula easily. But when I had it point to the opposite side of the sky where Jupiter was, it was out of alignment. Why? This part was bent.

Then again, I did the math and was able to go to Jupiter perfectly, so this may not be the whole problem.

I don’t know how it happened, or if this is the problem, but either way I’ll fix it. It’s a relatively easy fix.

As soon as the skies are clear again, I will test it and see if this was the problem. If this is not the problem, I will try the skyalign method.

Jared