4. Use the arrow buttons on the hand control to slew (move) the telescope towards any bright celestial object in the sky.
Align the object with the red dot of the finderscope and press ENTER.
5. If the finderscope has been properly aligned with the telescope tube, the alignment star should now be visible inside the
field of view of the eyepiece. The hand control will ask that you center the bright alignment star in the center of the
eyepiece and press the ALIGN button. This will accept the star as the first alignment position. (There is no need to
adjust the slewing rate of the motors after each alignment step. The NexStar automatically selects the best slewing rate
for aligning objects in both the finderscope and the eyepiece).
6. For the second alignment object, choose a bright star or planet as far as possible from the first alignment object. Once
again use the arrow button to center the object in the finderscope and press ENTER. Then once centered in the
eyepiece press the ALIGN button.
7. Repeat the process for the third alignment star. When the telescope has been aligned to the final stars, the display will
read "Match Confirmed". Press UNDO to display the names of the three bright objects you aligned to, or press
ENTER to accept these three objects for alignment. You are now ready to find your first object.
Tips for Using Sky Align
Remember the following alignment guidelines to make using Sky Align as simple and accurate as possible.
• Be sure to level the tripod before you begin alignment. The time/site information along with a level tripod will help the
telescope better predict the available bright stars and planets that are above the horizon.
• Remember to select alignment stars that are as far apart in the sky as possible. For best results make sure that the third
alignment star does not lie in a straight line between the first two stars. This may result in a failed alignment.
• Don’t worry about confusing planets for stars when selecting alignment objects. SkyAlign works with the four brightes
planets (Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars) as well as the Moon. In
t
addition to the planets, the hand control has over 80
•
sses near one of the brighter stars. In situations like these it is best to try to avoid
•
eyepiece will eliminate much of the
en the gears and assure the most accurate alignment possible.
ith the NexStar set up
below to align the telescope:
3.
ss UNDO to manually
4. n the hand control. Use Up and Down
. ou selected. Center the star in the finderscope and press ENTER.
Finally, center the star in the eyepiece and press ALIGN.
bright alignment stars to choose from (down to 2.5 magnitude).
Rarely SkyAlign will not be able to determine what three alignment objects were centered. This sometime happens
when a bright planet or the Moon pa
aligning to either object if possible.
Be sure to center the objects with the same final movements as the direction of the GoTo Approach. For example, if
the scope normally finishes a GoTo with the front of the scope moving right and up, you should center all three
alignment objects in the eyepiece using the right and up arrow buttons (the up/down arrows reverse at slew rates of 6 or
lower). Approaching the star from this direction when looking through the
backlash betwe
Auto Two-Star Align
As with Sky Align, Auto Two-Star Align requires you to enter all the necessary time/site information as before. Once this
information is entered, NexStar will prompt you to select and point the telescope at one known star in the sky. The NexStar
now has all the information it needs to automatically choose a second star that will assure the best possible alignment. Once
telescope will automatically slew to that second alignment star to complete the alignment. W
selected the
outside with all accessories attached and the tripod leveled, follow the steps
1. Once the NexStar is powered on , Press ENTER to begin alignment.
2. Use the Up and Down scroll keys (10) to select Auto Two-Star Align and press ENTER.
The hand control will display the last time and location information that was entered into the hand control. Use the Up and
own buttons to scroll through the information. Press ENTER to accept the current information or pre
D
edit the information (see Sky Align section for detailed instruction on entering time/site information).
he display will now prompt you to select a bright star from the displayed list oT
buttons (6 and 9 on the keypad) to scroll to the desired star and then press ENTER.
Use the arrow buttons to slew the telescope to the star y5
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