NexStar 8i help please

Hi Joe,

I think that may be the problem. I don't have a NexStar manual handy, but I
believe that the purpose of Quick Align is to get the telescope to track. I
don't think that it will properly set the scope up for accurate goto. Based
on this, I would bet that your goto doesn't work for stars either.

If you do a two star alignment, then goto should work well for deep sky
objects. If you also make sure that the date and time are accurate, then
both deep sky and solar system gotos should work.

I hope that this helps,
-Wade

"Joe" wrote in message
...
Wade, thanks for the words. I don't use alignment star data to get the
scope started. I am using their "quick align" I think it is called. You
start with the scope horizontal, level, and pointing north. Then of
course it needs date, time, and lat/long to know how to find a star or
planet. I guess I didn't make it clear how I was starting off.

So right now I don't know why this scope doesn't work as advertised. It
may be that it is a bug put in by the makers -- especially if everyone
else uses the two star technique to start it off. Maybe no one has ever
tested their "quick align" thing.

Thanks again, Joe

Wade A. Hilmo wrote:
Hi Joe,

I don't know about the 8i, but I have a NexStar 5, a CGE and an Ultima
2000.
None of these scopes use the date and time information for deep sky
gotos.
They all build a model of the sky from the alignment star data and use
it
for most gotos. They only need to know the time when you use goto on a
solar system object.

I would assume that if your date and time were off, the exact symptom
would
be that you can use goto fine with stars, but it would be off with solar
system objects. Because of that, I think that Rod's question is right
on.

If it misses both stars and solar system objects, then I would start
thinking about issues with setting up the alignment stars.

I hope that this helps,
-Wade

"Joe" wrote in message
news
Joe wrote:


My friend's NexStar 8i doesn't appear to be working right. We actually
read the manual and went thru the alignment procedure, starting
horizontal/North/leveled, entered proper dates,time (in Central
daylight
time which it appears to understand), lat/long and then told it to
find
Mars. It misses it by about 10 degrees. Any suggestions on the likely
problem here? I suspect it isn't the scope design or their firmware--
it's probably cockpit error but where? Any help appreciated.

Please reply here, that email return is no good.


How are you gotos on stars and deep sky objects? If they're OK, your
problem is probably time/date/timezone related.

Peace,
Rod Mollise
Author of _Choosing and Using a Schmidt Cassegrain Telescope_

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for further info

For Uncle Rod's Astro Blog See:
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Rod, thanks for the suggestion. I guess I'm confused. If the firmware on
the scope gets the date and/or time/timezone wrong then it won't
correctly point at any star either. Of course there's an extra step to
find a wandering planet via an ephemeris, but either process must have
the correct time date -- don't they?

I'd think that if it does find a star OK, then that proves that the time
data is OK -- and then if doesn't find planets, the ephemeris is
corrupted. I guess I may as well search for a star and find out but I'm
not expecting much. I can't think of anything else to do at this point.

Thanks again