moon tracking with cgem 1100

[tombo (Tom)]

Hi Guys

I bought a celestron cgem 1100. How do find the moon in the NexStar control ?

Also is it possible to plug a laptop in instead of using the NexStar. The controller is not very user friendly and will take some getting used to.

Any advice is appreciated.

[brisen (Brian)]

Originally Posted by tombo

Hi Guys

I bought a celestron cgem 1100. How do find the moon in the NexStar control ?

Also is it possible to plug a laptop in instead of using the NexStar. The controller is not very user friendly and will take some getting used to.

Any advice is appreciated.

Hi Tom

The Moon is found under the "Planet" button (5) and will only appear there if the moon is actually above the horizon. In order to track the moon you will need to go into the menu and scroll through to tracking and then select Lunar. The handset I have defaults to sidereal tracking.

You can use a laptop to replace the hand control. The required software should be on the disk that came with it or can be downloaded from Celestron. From memory you might need a RS232 card (or an adapter for the laptop) to connect the computer to the mount to use it as a controller. Once you become familiar with hand control it is relatively easy and I found practice was the best way to get used to it. I know after a period of not using the hand control for months I had to remember what was where.

Brian

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Unless they have changed it, the Celestron software to drive the mount went through the hand control and basically was just an on screen version of the hand controller, so no more intuitive to use than the controller itself.

I never found it difficult to use on my CPC mount, just took a few nights to learn it's idiosyncrasies.

[tombo (Tom)]

Thanks you're right I actually hadn't spent enough time with it. Tonight was the second night with it and I'm starting to get it now.

Thanks