Celestron nexstar 6SE please help

[mobile_mechanic]

Hi everyone 

I just bought a new celestron 6se with goto mount. I very new to this. This is my first telescope. I have only had the telescope for a week now. But for the life of me I can't get it to work right.

Here's the problem I am having. After setting up the telescope and making sure it the base is level. I align the finder scope to the top of a radio tower about 4 miles away. Then I do a 3 star alignment as it tells me in the manual. Find 3 bright stars align the first with the finder scope, press enter, Then centre the star in the eyepiece and press align.. Repeat for the other 2 stars.

After I do the third star it say's match confirmed, Alignment successful.

But then if I press the button to go look at, say Saturn, The telescope swing around to find Saturn and when it stops its miles out. For eg lets say Saturn is in the south at my 9 o clock.

The telescope is pointing south east at 11 o clock.

I can move the scope manually to view Saturn but then the scope doesn't track Saturn.

Can someone Please tell me what I am doing wrong.. Yes I have tried realigning the scope. In fact last night i did that about 6 time with the same result.

One more thing I live in London Ontario Canada. the city database in the telescope doesn't list my city. Toronto is the closest city in the database to me but that is 220 km away. Is that close enough or to far?

my gps is 42' 57' 38.63'N  81' 17' 24.48 W But the telescope is wanting me to input 3 digits first for eg 118'20'17. So do I input 042' 57' 38 ?

As you can see I am really confused can anyone please help

Thanks for taking the time to read this post     

   

[TerryMcK]

It does sound as if the telescope thinks you are in another spot on the earths surface hence why it is pointing in a different direction.

Input your GPS coordinates as you have stated 042 etc. Make sure you have the time set correctly including any offset from UTC.

 

Try to point to known guide stars such as Vega or Arcturus rather than random bright stars. If you are uncertain of where they actually are then there are many smartphone apps that can help. The computer in the scope is trying to align itself with its internal database of stars but needs your help to do it. Get to learn a few of these brightest stars and you will be on your way.

 

I’m sure you are aware of the Youtube videos for this but if not here they are

 

 

 

[Carastro]

I would agree with Terry, I have encountered this problems before with some newbies at a star party and when we looked into it, the telescope was set as if they were in the mid atlantic.  Once corrected to their location it worked perfectly.

 

Nearest main town 200km away would do, but if you can actually put in your home co-ordinates as Terry suggests, that would be better.  You only have to do this the once and your scope will remember it.  

 

I often go to star parties here in the UK some 35 miles away from home and even 130 miles away (double that roughly for Kms) and don't always bother to change the co-ordinates.   

 

Carole 

Edited August 23, 2022 by Carastro