Celestron 6 SE alignment

[andazamanka]

Hi everyone.


I have a question and need your help.

I got a Celestron 6 inch telescope and with the skies finally clearing I tried to align it. as per the instruction guide, as the first step I tried to align the finder scope and the eyepiece. I centered my finder scope on arctrus and then tried to center my scope but I could not see anything from my eyepiece.

I do not know what I am doing wrong. I know for sure that protective cover is not on the lens. I will try again tomorrow morning to align scope and the finder scope by aiming it at a building but please help me am I doing something wrong? should I be using celestron skyalign method? .



I am in Toronto, Canada, please help me and guide me. I am a newbie and will really appreciate all your help.





Thanks

[iborg (Philip)]

Hi There

Others may have better advice, but as a first step, I suggest you first try to focus the scope and align the viewfinder during the day. Pick something simple in the distance.

Remember that the stars move. While you point the scope at a star and THEN try to align the finder, the star will move out of position on you.

Good luck

Philip

[raymo]

It could be that the main scope was way out of focus; everything will be
just a dark blur at night, especially if you are not looking at something large and/or bright such as the moon, or Jupiter.
Start off by finding a direction during the day where you can find something a long way off, such as a street light. Use a low power eyepiece and focus the scope on the distant object, and centralise it in the scope's field of view. Align the cross hairs in the finder scope on the same distant object using the radially spaced
screws on the finder. The main scope's focus should be not too far out when you look at the sky at night. If out of focus, the stars will look like
white discs. Turn the focuser until the stars look like pinpricks.
I assume that you bought it new, so that it is unlikely that there is anything wrong with the scope.
raymo

[Allan_L (Allan)]

Hi (enter your name here),
Welcome to IceInSpace

As advised above, start off in the day time.
I have an 4SE which is similar.

Firstly set up the scope outside.
put your lowest powered eyepiece in (probably 25mm).
Take off the caps.
Look through the eyepiece adjusting focus until you can see something.
Then slew the scope to some distant object (tree, light).
THEN, adjust the finder to centre on that object.

This will not be totally accurate for DSOs but will get you close enough and you then fine adjust at night on a bright object (Sirius etc.)

If in the daylight you still can see nothing, check that there is not a filter screwed onto the bottom of the eyepiece. If still no good, report back as to whether (in daylight) it is a White nothing or a Black nothing. Take the eyepiece out and look into the diagonal to see if the light path is compromised.

Hope this helps some, and please report back to let us know.