Very disappointed newbie

[Stickboy (Phil)]

julianh72 I was reading the Beginners Start Here posts last night and everyone was talking about the New scope syndrome. I through the gods might go easy on me but then again they have predicted rain all week

[jwoody (Jeremy)]

So your to blame for this weather! Glad that you have finally got all that mess sorted out. What a drama.
Best of luck and happy that you have it sorted out.
Clear skies

[Akwestland (Andrew and Kim)]

Phil,

What a nightmare. We have been following your plight ever since the humble beginnings. All I can say now that it is absobvloodyfabulous that you have a workable starting point.

I hope that the gods do shine on you for the heartache endured through this and offer many clear skies at your beckon.

Seriously though, fantastic and we hope that all gets a lot better.

Cheers,
Andrew & Kim.

[astronobob (Bob)]

Looking forward to your progress Phil

[Stickboy (Phil)]

My first night wasn't too bad, slightly overcast and a big moon. I thought I had the alignment pretty good but went the wrong direction with the magnetic declination. the goto was terrible But I did find Jupiter and what looked like the four moons. Went to bed at mid night very happy.

Phil

[Pinwheel (Doug)]

April 4th Saturday night is a lunar eclipse 11.00pm. So you know it's going to rain.

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Congrats on your new scope Phil, that's quite an ordeal you've been through and now for more rain

I've had the AVX since it first came out and it's a nice little mount for the price. The trick to good gotos is to do the 2-star alignment and answer yes when it suggests adding calibration stars. The more you add (up to 4), the more accurate the gotos will be. After a 2+4, I find it will stick the object in the FOV with a rough polar alignment, meaning just plonked down pointing in more or less the right direction ideally though, get it as close to true south as you can, but don't waste any time just for visual use.

One thing to check though is the firmware version...if you want to subsequently run the All-star polar alignment routine you need to be running the latest firmware which includes fixes for the southern hemisphere, otherwise it throws up meaningless values.

The other night I was out fooling around with mine waiting for Sagittarius to rise and after one iteration of the 2+4 star followed by polar alignment I was getting 30 second exposures 50% of the time with the camera attached to my C8...it's not a bad little mount

[Stickboy (Phil)]

Camelopardalis thanks for the advice. I tried to add 1 star but even on the 2 star alignment it wasn't putting the star in the FOV on a 25mm eyepiece? I was going to check that the hand set was programmed for Southern hemisphere which i haven't done yet. But might just upgrade the hand set. Didn't really want to do that just yet as last time the handset stopped working.

Edit - Checked handset and looks like the latest version software. The handset was set to EQ-North. changed it to EQ-South. That might help

[David Niven (David Niven)]

I Avoid vendors that advertised an item without a physical inventory!
If it is not in stock, they should say so, up front and advise when it would be available.
Good lesson here.

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Originally Posted by Stickboy

Camelopardalis thanks for the advice. I tried to add 1 star but even on the 2 star alignment it wasn't putting the star in the FOV on a 25mm eyepiece? I was going to check that the hand set was programmed for Southern hemisphere which i haven't done yet. But might just upgrade the hand set. Didn't really want to do that just yet as last time the handset stopped working.

Edit - Checked handset and looks like the latest version software. The handset was set to EQ-North. changed it to EQ-South. That might help

Not getting the 2nd alignment star in the FOV is not surprising unless your polar alignment is spot on, as what you're doing is telling the computer what offset it needs to know about to get there. As you add calibration stars you should progressively notice they're getting closer to the centre of FOV as the model of the sky is increasingly refined.

[Cosmic (Daniel)]

Originally Posted by barx1963

I don't as a rule join in vendor bashing, but one of the reasons I only deal with Bintel is that when I have rung them about what they have in stock I have had an honest answer.
As I work in retail these days, I know how hard it is to maintain an inventory, you just physically cannot hold everything in stock, but at least your answers should be honest.

Malcolm

Couldn't agree more with you Malcolm.

[rico13]

thanks for sharing Phil.. I'm in the market for a new scope myself and I shall stay clear of this mob.
Cheers

[ariefm71 (Arief)]

Another +1 for Bintel. Their customer service is second to none.

Originally Posted by Cosmic

Couldn't agree more with you Malcolm.

[Stickboy (Phil)]

Optic Central gave me a gift vouchor for the problems that I had with the AVX8 SCT. I finally use it this week which I got a couple of items

Thank you Lydia

Phil