New eyepiece

Manny · Guest

Hi
I reently bought a bushnell northstar 4.5 from optics planet shop in prospet heights. But i'am having trouble setting the telescope. I live close by in streamwood. The manual reads that the telescope will find the star on its own. All you have to do is center it. The problem is that the star is no where near where the telescope is pointing. Is there anyone who can help me set it up.

BobY · Guest

You need to give us more to go on...

Did you use Earth Align, Object Align or Star Align?

If Earth Align, did you set the time and date? Did you set the time to the correct time zone (and take Daylight Saving Times into account)?
Did you use City or Lat/Lon mode?

Also, the telescope should be pointed in the general direction of North when aligning it and should be reasonably level (the scope will level itself within reason on power-up).

Also make sure you have attached the telescope to the mount correctly--the computer only knows where the NorthStar mount is pointed, if the telescope is not attached correctly, the mount could be positioned properly, but the telescope will not be.

BobY · Guest

Also, when centering a star in any of the align modes, make sure you center it in the scope eyepiece itself--don't rely on the finderscope.

If you've taken the time to align the finderscope carefully (mine was way out of aligment when I first attached it), you can use the finderscope to get the star in the field of view of the scope, but you should always center the star in the scope eyepiece before hitting "enter" on the NorthStar controller. A tiny error in the finderscope will be magnified in the eyepiece.

P.S. I shouldn't have said the NorthStar mount will "level" itself. On power up, the mount moves to it's home reference position, which it assumes is level. Everything will work, provided the mount is reasonably level and pointed generally North. The controller can compensate for variations in set-up to a certain extent, but if the mount is cocked enough and/or pointed too far away from north, the computer might incorrectly identify which stars you are aligning to. The NorthStar controller is trying to match a star map in it's memory to what it assumes should be in the sky, based on your input and the assumption it is reasonably level and pointed Northward.

If you have any knowledge of the sky at the time of viewing, it is much easier and quicker to Star Align, but you need to be able to accurately identify two stars in the sky you are looking at.

Whichever alignment mode you use, when aligment is complete, the display will show an alignment rating from 1 to 5 stars. If the rating is low, that could be an indication that the setup is too far out of whack for the controller to definitively identify the stars you centered.