Confessions

[Hemi]

Dear Members,

I've been observing for about 2 years.
I never got on with the goto handcontroller of my c925 evolution. It just does not align when using the HC. So I gave up and use the sky safari app.

I would like to use the HC.

It must be a location and time thing but it's got me flummoxed.

I live in Darwin, that's +9.5 hrs. No Daylight saving.

I've entered long and lat, tried +9, and +10 time zones, added and subtracted the time offset for the wrong zones etc etc, but alignment is always off, even though most times it says that alignment succeeded.

Any suggestions?

Hemi

[Atmos]

It may be one of those situations where the HC just isn't going to work well if it doesn't break down into the 1/2 hour time zones.

One thing I have noticed with HC's, they will almost always say that alignment is successful unless you are way WAY off :P

[sheeny]

I struggled with my old C8 SGT until I bought the GPS module for it.

My theory at the time was that I'd enter the date and time at the start of the procedure but depending on how long it took to do the three star alignment, the handcontroller didn't seem to update from the time you entered. All that disappeared when I went GPS.

Al.

[Nebulous]

Hi Hemi,

+9.5 hours appears to be right, so maybe the problem is with the latitude and longitude?

I'm not familiar with your Celestron system but when I set up my Skywatcher Star Discovery controller I initially had problems with latitude and longitude because there was a small section that I could barely see which had to be set in order for it to know whether the figures I input referred to the northern or southern hemisphere, and west or east. I had been confused by the manual outlining two different setup systems, leading me to think that the hemisphere thing had already been established, when it hadn't... :rolleyes:

The default was the northern, so I had to change N to S, and also W to E for it to register where I was. The first couple of time through the menus I simply didn't see it (there was other stuff on the lines if I recall correctly). When I specifically went hunting for it I was able to spot it and make the changes. After that it worked fine. :)

Could there be a similar issue with yours perhaps?

Good luck.

Chris

[raymo]

The main thing that will guide your diagnosis is whether it is pretty
consistently the same amount out, or whether the amount and direction of inaccuracy is random. If it is consistent, then maybe Atmos is right, and
the half hour is the problem. If it is random, then most likely either you are not following the procedure to the letter,[which I doubt], or there is a fault in the HC. I've had a couple of Evolutions, and found that the target was
always within the field of a low power EP.
raymo

[Hemi]

Thanks everybody, I'm pretty sure I've put all the settings in correctly.
I should now also add that the new starsense hand controller does the same thing..... alignment is off.
Works faultlessly with iPad, sky safari and direct wifi only. Alignment off with access point wifi as well.

Hemi

[Larryp]

Are you using the American date format?

[Steffen]

I'm not sure about the Celestron HC, but on the SynScan I've got I always set the timezone to +0, set the time in UTC and DST to "No".

Also, a popular mistake is forgetting that the date format MM/DD/YYYY, not DD/MM/YYYY. This can cost the unwary observer half a night of pulling out hair... :D

[Hemi]

Thanks again,

Yes date entered in us format.
Will try the Utc option.

H

[sil]

How are you defining "off"? Your target is not dead center? or scope is pointing to the ground? timezone is the assumption but you never started with describing HOW its off. Celestron handsets and motor controls have had problems in the past for southern hemisphere locations. Have you checked teamcelestron and run updates? (NOT celestron.com, they are useless for updates).

[ChrisV]

I've seen an answer to this somewhere but can't remember. There's this ?
https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/568853-starsense-and-time-zones/

Surely there's someone in Adelaide with a goto that sorted it out ?