Celestron NexStar 11, Instruction Manual

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3. The
SELECT STAR 1
SELECT STAR 1 SELECT STAR 1
SELECT STAR 1
message will appear in the top row of the display. Use the Up and Down scroll keys (10) to select
the star you wish to use for the first alignment star. Press ENTER.
4. NexStar then asks you to center in the eyepiece the alignment star you selected. Use the direction buttons to slew the
telescope to the alignment star and carefully center the star in the eyepiece.
In order to accurately center the alignment star in the eyepiece, it will be necessary to decrease the slew rate of the motors
for fine centering. This is done by pressing the RATE key (11) on the hand controller then selecting the number that
corresponds to the speed you desire. (9 = fastest , 1 = slowest).
5. Once the alignment star is centered in the field of view of the eyepiece, press the ALIGN key (2) to accept this
position.
6. NexStar will then ask you to select and center a second alignment star and press the ALIGN key. It is best to choose
alignment stars that are a good distance away from one another. Stars that are at least 40º to 60º apart from each other
will give you a more accurate alignment than stars that are close to each other.
Once the second star alignment is completed properly, the display will read
Alignment Successful
Alignment Successful Alignment Successful
Alignment Successful
, and you will hear the
tracking motors turn-on and begin to track.
Quick-Align
Quick-Align allows you to input all the same information as you would for the AutoAlign procedure. However, instead of slewing
to two alignment stars for centering and alignment, the NexStar bypasses this step and simply models 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 the information needed to track objects in altazimuth in any part of the sky. Quick-Align is not meant to be used to
accurately locate small or faint deep-sky objects or to track objects accurately for photography.
Note: Once a Quick-Align has
been done, you can use the Re-alignment feature (see below) to improve your telescopes pointing and tracking accuracy.
To use Quick-Align:
1. Select Quick-Align from the alignment options.
2. Use the arrow buttons to level the tube and position the telescope tube towards north and press ENTER.
3. The hand control will then ask you to input all the same time and location information as you would for the AutoAlign
procedure.
4. Once entered, the NexStar will model the sky based on this information and display
Alignment Successful Alignment Successful Alignment Successful Alignment Successful
.
EQ North / EQ South Alignment
Both EQ North and EQ South Alignments are used when the telescope is to be polar aligned on an optional equatorial wedge.
The EQ alignments follows many of the same steps as the Two-Star Alignment, but will first position the optical tube parallel to
the fork arms for polar alignment For more information on using EQ alignments, see the
Polar Alignment section of the manual.
NexStar Re-Alignment
The NexStar has a re-alignment feature which allows you to replace either of the two original alignment stars
with a new star or celestial object. This can be useful in several situations:
•
If you are observing over a period of a few hours, you may notice that your original two alignment stars have
drifted towards the west considerably. (Remember that the stars are moving at a rate of 15º every hour). Aligning
on a new star that is in the eastern part of the sky will improve your pointing accuracy, especially on objects in
that part of the sky.
•
If you have aligned your telescope using the Quick-Align method, you can use re-align to align to two actual
objects in the sky. This will improve the pointing accuracy of your telescope without having to re-enter addition
information.
To replace an existing alignment star with a new alignment star:
1. Select the desired star (or object) from the database and slew to it.
2. Carefully center the object in the eyepiece.
3. Once centered, press the UNDO button until you are at the main menu.
4. With
NexStar Ready
displayed, press the ALIGN key on the hand control.
Helpful
Hint