The Celestron Nexstar 6 Inch SE will align on one solar system object such as the Moon or a planet. This is very helpful when your viewing sky is limited to only East for example and there may be a small roof obstruction overhead and wall obstructions to the left and right. This is often the case when observing from tall skyscrapers. There may be other large skyscrapers randomly blocking parts of the view. The skyscraper itself may block North and any alignment to the North Star. Aligning on a single solar system object will remedy this. The Celestron Nexstar 6 SE comes to the rescue with SkyAlign and the Solar System option. Photo Note: only a small finderscope is needed on the main telescope, and not the StarSense AutoAlign as shown.
Here are the details for a simple Solar System Align, and projects for experimenting with other techniques.
* Solar System Align
* One Star Align
* Sync
* (Sky Limits) Slew Limits
* (Sky Limits) Filter Limits
SOLAR SYSTEM ALIGN
Solar System Align is designed to provide excellent tracking and GoTo performance by using solar system objects (the Sun, Moon and planets) to align the telescope with the sky. Solar System Align is a great way to align your telescope for daytime viewing and a quick way to align the telescope for basic nighttime observing.
WARNING: Never look directly at the Sun with the naked eye or with a telescope (unless you have the proper solar filter). Permanent and irreversible eye damage may result.
To perform a Solar System Align
1 - Once the telescope is powered on, use the SCROLL UP and SCROLL DOWN buttons to select Solar System. Align Press ENTER
The hand control will display the last time and location information that was entered into the hand control. Press ENTER to accept the current information or press BACK to manually edit the information (see SkyAlign section on page 10 for detailed instruction on entering time/site information).
2 - The SELECT OBJECT message will appear in the top row of the display. Use the SCROLL UP and SCROLL DOWN buttons to choose a Solar System object (a planet, the Moon, etc ) to use for alignment. Press ENTER
3 The hand control will then prompt you to use the direction arrow buttons to slew the telescope to the alignment object and carefully center it in the finderscope. Press ENTER when centered.
4 Then, center the object in the eyepiece. Press ALIGN
Once in position, the NexStar SE will model the sky based on this information and display “Align Successful”
EXPERIMENT WITH ONE STAR ALIGN
In case you have only one star and no solar system objects: One-Star Align requires you to input all the same information as you would for the Two-Star Align procedure. However, instead of slewing to two alignment stars for centering and alignment, the NexStar uses only one star to model the sky based on the information given. This will allow you to roughly slew to the coordinates of bright objects like the moon and planets and gives the NexStar SE the information it needs to track objects in altazimuth in any part of the sky. One-Star Align is not meant to accurately locate small or faint deep-sky objects or to track objects accurately for photography.
EXPERIMENT WITH SYNC
The Sync feature can improve your telescope’s pointing accuracy in a specific region of the sky. Sync is a very useful feature when used in conjunction with the Constellation Tour and Identify features, in which you will be exploring smaller areas of the sky. To Sync on an object:
1 - Select a desired star (or object) from the STARS or DEEP SKY database and slew to it.
2 - Once the object is centered in the eyepiece, press the BACK button until you arrive at the main menu
3 - When the display reads “NexStar SE,” press the ALIGN button on the hand control.
4 - Use the SCROLL UP and SCROLL DOWN buttons and select the Sync option. Press ENTER
5 - Align the Sync object in the center of the finderscope. Press ENTER
6 - Carefully center the object in the eyepiece. Press ALIGN
Your telescope’s pointing accuracy will now be improved in that area of the sky.
EXPERIMENT WITH SKY LIMITS
SLEW LIMITS This option allows you to define how far the telescope can slew in altitude without displaying a warning message. The slew limits prevent the telescope tube from slewing to an object below the horizon and can be customized to suit your equipment setup. If you are using a large eyepiece, 2” diagonal, or camera on the rear of the telescope, you may need to adjust the slew limits to prevent the rear accessories from striking the base of the telescope mount. For example, if you would like to slew to an object that is close to the zenith but you have a large camera attached that prevents the telescope from pointing straight up, you can set the maximum altitude to 80 or 85 degrees to prevent the tube from ever pointing straight up and the camera from striking your mount.
FILTER LIMITS When an alignment is complete, the hand controller automatically knows which celestial objects are above the horizon. As a result, when scrolling through the database lists (or selecting the Tour function), the NexStar hand control will display only those objects that are known to be above the horizon when you are observing. You can customize the object database by selecting altitude limits that are appropriate for your location and situation. For example, if you are observing from a mountainous location where the horizon is partially obscured, you can set your minimum altitude limit to +20 degrees. This will ensure that the hand control only displays objects that are higher in altitude than 20 degrees.
Reference: Nexstar SE Instruction Manual
