Aligning with Nexstar calibration

[kramenyak77]

Hi again. When I look through the list of stars in my Nexstar handset for alignment, I select Australia and the Gold Coast, and put in the correct time and date, so why are all the stars it gives me for alignment so obscure, and all the big bright obvious stars in the sky not listed? Usually the only two I can find are Gacrux and Hadar! Anyone else have this problem?

[ChrisV]

Last night my nexstar gave arcturus then hadar as the alignment stars. Spica and MenKent should also just in the western skies.

I'll have a look at what's in the list on mine tonight.

[raymo]

I don't understand why you have to be able to recognise numerous
stars, including many obscure ones, when the Celestron SLT series
mounts allow you to use any bright stars you like.
raymo

[kramenyak77]

Raymo the problem is it doesn't let you choose any star, it gives you around a dozen to choose from.

[raymo]

My point was that the Nexstar series mounts give you a list of stars to choose from, which assumes that you know which star is which. The Skywatcher
HEQ5 type mounts do the same thing, but the SLT series mounts allow you to choose any bright stars you wish, so you don't need to know the name of any star, just choose any two or three stars that are well apart from each other, too easy, you can even use the moon as one of the bright objects.
raymo

[kramenyak77]

Raymo read my first question. It doesn't list every star. It lists a number of stars that I'm not aware of, while others that are big and bright are not listed. It would be much simpler if it allowed me to choose the most obvious stars in the sky on any given night.

[raymo]

We seem to be at cross purposes here. My point is if the SLT series mounts
let you choose from any fairly bright star you can see in the sky, whether you know its name or not; even the moon if you like; you just aim the scope at it and press enter; why does Nexstar just give you a star or two[often obscure ones] and assume that you will know where they are.
I was making an observation, not, unfortunately, offering some help.
raymo

[kramenyak77]

My mount is a CGX. I know some of the main stars but I don't know obscure ones yet. I'm new to this.

[kramenyak77]

The SLT makes it sound much easier! But I don't have one. In any case I've ordered a StarSense so that will align it for me.

Thanks Raymo.

[michaellxv]

With the Nexstar if you choose a 3 star alignment you can point it at any 3 bright objects and the mount will work it out.

If you use 1 or 2 star alignment you do have to be able to identify stars from the list.

Try a 1 star alignment. Then goto any other star that you do know. It may not land spot this star and you may have to move it to center it. Then press and hold to Align button to align on that star. You now have a 2 star alignment.

At any time you can Align on any object you are viewing, doing this improves its accuracy in that general area of the sky.

[kramenyak77]

Thank you Michael I will try that!

[sil]

Mark, to add to Michael's suggestion, if you know where roughly in the sky you will be observing or photographing, then balance your scope in that position before you do your alignment, I found it always helped keep accurate tracking.

To clear confusion, some celestron mounts let you just point to any bright objects to align them, while others require you to point to a specific target. I have both an SLT and a CGEM DX and they behave different to each other.

[rrussell1962]

Mark, this may be a silly question but have you entered the date in MM/DD/YY format and set the time zone to +10?