Orion 9536 Tips for Using Solar System Align, StarSeeker Re-Alignment, Selecting an Object

4.StarSeeker then asks you to center in the eyepiece the alignment star you selected. Use the direction arrow buttons to slew the telescope to the alignment star and carefully center the star in the finderscope. Press ENTER when centered.

5.Then, center the star in the eyepiece and press ALIGN.

6.Once in position, the StarSeeker will model the sky based on this information and display Align Successful.

Note: Once a One-Star Alignment has been done, you can use the Re-alignment feature (later in this section ) to improve your telescope’s pointing accuracy.

Solar System Align

Solar System Align is designed to provide excellent tracking and GoTo performance by using solar system objects (Sun, Moon and planets) to align the telescope with the sky. Solar System Align is a great way to align your telescope for day- time viewing as well as a quick way to align the telescope for night time observing.

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.

1.Select Solar System Align from the alignment options.

2.Press ENTER to accept the time/site information dis- played on the display, or press UNDO to enter new infor- mation.

3.The SELECT OBJECT message will appear in the top row of the display. Use the Up and Down scroll keys (10) to select the daytime object (planet, moon or sun) you wish to align. Press ENTER.

4.StarSeeker then asks you to center in the eyepiece the alignment object you selected. Use the direction arrow buttons to slew the telescope to the alignment object and carefully center it in the finderscope. Press ENTER when centered.

5.Then, center the object in the eyepiece and press

ALIGN.

Once in position, the StarSeeker will model the sky based on this information and display Align Successful.

Tips for Using Solar System Align

• For safety purposes, the Sun will not be displayed in any of the hand control’s customer object lists unless it is enabled from the Utilities Menu. To allow the Sun to be displayed on the hand control, do the following:

1.Press the UNDO button until the display reads NexStar GT.

2.Press the MENU button and use the Up and Down keys to select the Utilities menu. Press ENTER.

3.Use the UP and Down keys to select Sun Menu and press

ENTER.

4.Press ENTER again to allow the Sun to appear on the hand control display.

The Sun can be removed from the display by using the same procedure as above.

To improve the telescope pointing accuracy, you can use the Re-Align feature as described below.

StarSeeker Re-Alignment

The StarSeeker has a re-alignment feature which allows you to replace either of the 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 15° 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 One-star align method, you can use re-align to align to an addition- al object in the sky. This will improve the pointing accu- racy of your telescope without having to re-enter location 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 GT displayed, press the ALIGN key on the hand control.

5.The display will then ask you which alignment star you want to replace.

6.Use the UP and Down scroll keys to select the alignment star to be replaced, and press ENTER. It is usually best to replace the star closest to the new object. This will space out your alignment stars across the sky. If you have used one of the single object alignment methods then it is always best to replace the object that is “unassigned” with an actual object.

7.Press ALIGN to make the change.

Selecting an Object

Now that the telescope is properly aligned, you can choose an object from any of the catalogs in the StarSeeker’s data- base. The hand control has a key designated for each of the catalogs in its database. There are two ways to select objects from the database; scrolling through the named object lists and entering object numbers:

•Pressing the LIST key on the hand control will access all objects in the database that have common names or types. Each list is broken down into the following catego- ries: Named Stars, Named Object, Double Stars, Variable Stars and Asterisms. Selecting any one of these options will display an alpha-numeric listing of the objects under

13