Langenbrettach, August 14th 2001 Matthias Bopp
Tips, hints and pending problems for Celestron Nexstar 114GT (original handcontroller before the update):
1.) The optical tube was inserted backwards, but it is easily removed by unloosening the "tube holder" connected to the arm. Remove and replace tube in the position as seen on your manual. If the tube is inserted correctly and levelled horizontally you should be able to read the labels "NexStar" both, on the tube and the little round one on the tube holder correctly. None of them must be upside down ! 2.) The arm's tube holder clamp needs to be turned a 180 degrees as well as it was upside down. Again look on your manual and you will see the brand name label right side up as mine was upside down. Both of these problems were making the telescope slew down to the ground when Goto planet Jupiter was selected and other preset space items to anywhere but to the object. In other words: Install the tube with the mirror end farthest away from the tripod, and the hinge on the OTA clamp should be at the bottom. 3.) Another overlooked problem may be you are trying to enter military time and this model is not programmed for that, so just enter as usual and enter pm or am plus the other parameters. 4.) The battery connector is not very high quality. I had to replace the connector the second day. I do now use a chinch connector (RCA connector) because the jack suits exactly in the hole of the NexStar casing where the original jack had been. So I did not have to alter the Telescope (respectively its casing). In case I have to return it within the warranty time I can change it back in 5 minutes. 5.) An ac/dc adapter or a rechargeable battery pack is more efficient than batteries. I never used the battery pack but do use a 12V, 7Ah rechargeable sealed lead-acid battery. This type of battery does not need trickle charging and do not have a memory effect like NiCd accumulators. So you can just fix the supply voltage of the charger to 13.8V (at room temperature) and you can leave it connected to the battery as long as you like without harming the accumulator by overcharging. Please do not make the supply wires longer than needed and use thicker wires. 6.) The time zone offset from GMT for Germany is not "01" as indicated in the German manual but "23" because the time zones are counted the other way around. 7.) Storing and recalling an observers position (lat, long) in the memory does not work on (my) NexStar114GT. The alignment stars are far off. It is much better to use one of the predefined cities, even if it is more than 100km away. For instance I am using Frankfurt/Germany (which is approx. 120km away !). The little NexStars have a bug which prevents stored long/lat from working in the Eastern hemisphere. 8.) The initial alignment is crucial. It is essential to align the whole tripod horizontally and the tube north. See enclosed explanations from a friend: The issue is that the NexStar needs the lat and long data to find the alignment stars for you to use. If the base is not level, then the "virtual" location of the scope is -different- than the location described by the lat and long. To illustrate this, take a globe, put your hand on your location with it perpendicular to the globe radius at your location. This is the condition the NexStar wants because it is the location corresponding to the lat and long that you entered. Now, tilt your hand slightly. Move around the globe until the globe radius vector is perpendicular to your hand (dont move the globe). This is the "virtual" location. The NexStar depends on the AZ and ALT axis (RA and DEC if you are polar aligned) being perpendicular. There is no hard index in the system. So, you must tell it that piece of data each time you power up. This means you must put the OTA perpendicular to the arm at each power up (NOT level). The encoder accuracy is 20 arc sec so you should strive for that accuracy. 9.) It should be essential during alignment to take care of the backlash effect. However the backlash values are not stored in memory as stated in the manual so they have to be programmed every time you power on the telescope. Please program the 2 values first and then do the auto alignment ! For my telescope the value 25 is optimum for AZ and the value 10 optimum for ALT. I first bypass auto-alignment and enter the backlash values. Then I try to track a Star and the telescope will say "No Alignment". Pressing 3 times "Undo" will get me back to the main menu saying "NexStar ready" and asking for auto-alignment. I centre the object in the viewfinder also during auto-alignment and 3rd star alignment always by moving from left to right and bottom to top.

10.) The encoder constants of the 114GT and 4GT for AZ and ALT are 1059334. The encoder constants of the 60GT and 80GT for AZ and ALT are 0726559. Some NexStars have been shipped with the wrong encoder constants so please check it. Otherwise you will not achieve proper alignment/Goto/tracking. Please note selecting the model from the build in list does not work, instead you have to select "Custom" and enter the constants given above. You must do this even if the correct model is shown in the display. 11.) After a reasonable good initial alignment as stated in 11.) and 3 hours time the alignment was completely gone. Executing e.g. the command Goto AZ/ALT and giving the values 0/0 would tilt the telescope at least -10 below the horizon. 12.) The GT version of the small NexStars cannot be controlled by the GuideStar software running on a PC. Only the HC version does work. The GT version can be controlled by e.g. the Planetarium program running on a Palm. Celestron works on fixing the GT controller. 13.) The enclosed Software GuideStar 2.1 cannot even be installed on a PC with German Windows. I tried Windows 95 as well as Windows 2000 without success. The fix is: simply create a directory c:\program files and copy the original guide star folder in this directory. Actually this is also necessary on US PCs because Guidestar expects to be installed on C:\program files ! 14.) I had some problems when using the Guidestar software together with my new HC hand-controller for my NexStar114GT: When comparing the calculated RA/DEC values with other programs I found quite some differences. finally I found the root cause: You must not set the Windows PC's country settings to German ! When changing to English(USA) it seems to work fine. The difference can be seen in the RA/DEC values for a star in the windows "information" and "change information". In the latter the values are consistent with the values shown by "the sky" and "planetarium". However if the country settings are set to German these values are wrong converted to the used RA/DEC values in the window "information". Sometimes my NexStar114GT (controlled by the program GuideStar 2.1) starts slewing completely crazy until the tube hits the base (= mechanical limit). Here are my settings: PC running Windows 2000 with Country-code English(USA) Location Frankfurt/Germany Date 02/28/2001 Time 11:37pm Time-Zone 23 Daylight savings off Altitude limits 0 and 65 Tracking on Backlash settings AZM+=100, AZM-=100, ALT+=50, ALT-=50 After a dummy alignment indoor (accepting the centred 2 stars in auto alignment) I did a Goto to Sirius. It should have been at an altitude of approximately 12. Instead of going there the telescope slews towards zenith until it hits the mechanical limit (tube hits the base). I did power off the telescope completely and started from the very beginning: same result ;-( 15.) The RS232 cable for connecting the telescope to the PC is the same for the NexStars 4/5/8/60/80/114. A very comprehensive description can be found at Mike Swansons NexStar Resource Homepage at http://www.nexstarsite.com/PCControl.htm. 16.) Maybe there is a similar effect of faulty memory for the location as in the NexStar 5 or 8: there only the locations 0-4-8 or 1-5-9 do save the values correct. The reason is an overflow of memory i.e. saved data would spill in adjacent memory locations. It is not yet verified that this is also the case with the NexStar114GT. 17.) When using the Goto function for a planet only the ALT value can be checked during tracking. The AZM value is not available when toggling through the information menu. 18.) The NexStar controller does sometimes lock up: 13.01.01 at low outside temperature (-5C) after approx 15min. during Goto command to new star (trying to abandon old Goto command). Display shows only "1"s in both lines. (See next item 18.) 10.02.01 outside temperature approx. +5C. After 2 hours of very good Goto performance (Saturn, Jupiter and Orion nebula in the FOV of a 15mm EP) it locks. Display shows only the characters "b" in both lines. 19.) At lower temperatures the display reacts very slow. Celestron recommends to use a small heater (chemical or electrical) attached to the hand controller when using it below the freezing point. 20.) How to do a daytime alignment e.g. for the sun: First do an Auto Align,. You need the date and time for "finding" the sun. Just align the telescope north and level it horizontally. Then just accept where the scope goes for the alignment stars and then do a Goto on the sun. You will most likely not hit the sun but should be

reasonably close. You can then either look at the shadow of your scope on the ground and move the scope east/west the up/down to minimize the shadow. You can also use the Starfinder (after adding a solar filter to it). Just move the whole tripod, not the move it by the motors. Set your tracking rate to Solar. 21.) When going through the auto-alignment procedure please make sure that you start to centre the alignment stars with the Starfinder, next with your lowest power EP and then move up with the power until you have maximum power. If you do have a Barlow use it too. The move to the next alignment star and repeat the procedure. This will improve the Goto and Tracking performance significantly. 22.) I recently built a solar filter from a din A4 sized (200mmx290mm) Astro-Solar film from BaaderPlanetarium (www.baader-planetarium.de). I used the D=5 version which is proposed for visual observations. There is another one with D=3 for photographical applications but D=3 can harm the eyes so you must not use it without additional filters. It was simple to build the solar filter according to the enclosed construction tips. So my little daughter and I enjoyed both: building the homebrew filter and exploring first time some sunspots. 23.) After a Goto the direction buttons will work very but a very low speed. First you should leave the menu e.g. showing the position of the tracked object. Just press "Undo" so many times until you get in the main menu. The telescope should show "Ready". Please note that as long as tracking is activated the effective speed is set very low ( even if you check the rate and it shows 9). You can move quickly by pressing the direction button and its opposite button simultaneously, e.g. if you want to move quickly left, press the "left" button and then additionally the "right" button. Once you set the tracking mode to "off" the effective speed is as set in the menu "Rate". 24.) If you want to centre the alignment stars, Mike Swanson has been using the following trick: When you are performing the final centring of each star in your high-power eyepiece, defocus the star, it will turn into a circle that is much easier to centre than a single point of light. Plus, it doesn't cost anything and it's one less thing to have in your accessory case :-) 25.) Please have a look at the following sites, they do provide more up to date information. Sorry, the list may not be up-to-date and is certainly not complete. http://www.nexstarsite.com http://www.wigloo.com/webu/lea/80gt.html http://www.grcooperjr.com/disc2_frm.htm http://home.att.net/~nexstar/index.html http://www.koessel.com/nexstar/ http://209.20.244.173/dons Kind regards Matthias Email: DD1US@AMSAT.ORG Homepage: http://www.dd1us.de

Langenbrettach, May 13th 2011 Matthias DD1US
Celestron NexStar Users who are also Ham Radio Amateurs
Dear Hams/NexStarians, below please find the latest list of NexStar users who also hold an Amateur Radio license. Please send me updates or hints to missing friends from the NexStar and Ham Radio community. I will contact them and ask them for permission to include them in this table. I hope sometime we may have a combined Star-Party / Field-Day with many international participants. As of today we are 117 members from 19 different countries worldwide (Italy, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, USA, Netherlands, Mexico, Ireland, Canada, Spain, UK, Portugal, France, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Venezuela, South Africa, Guernsey).
First Name Matteo Matthias Tams Ulf John John Sam Rod Dave
Surname Campanella Bopp Szkffy Johnsson Crilly Zimmerman Cosgrove Mollise Cole
Callsign IZ2EEQ DD1US HA5CST SM5LDG W8TD WA6OSY N1BQN AC4WY NK7Z
Email-Address matteone(at)hotmail.com dd1us(at)amsat.org prof(at)prof.hu Ulf_Juo(at)hotmail.com jcrilly(at)neo.rr.com john(at)z-family.com cosgrovesam(at)hotmail.com rmollise(at)aol.com dave(at)nexstar11.com
Country Italy Germany Hungary Sweden USA USA USA USA USA

Homepage

Remarks
http://www.dd1us.de http://www.prof.hu
N5i, N11GPS, HF to microwave, SSB to ATV NexStar8GPS N11GPS, Yeasu FT-847, Kenwood TR751E CGE1100 LX200GPS 10" and 14"
First Name Dan Chuck Les Jeff Gary Stu Howard Tom James Ken Charles Bob Jim Larry Tom Rich Howard
Surname Hupp Aurand Blalock Gerst Neilson Ritter Israel Zebraski Haines Hutchinson Gorgen Lombardi Munson Thomas Hering Dalton Brownstein
Callsign N0TZL AB0RV N5KOA N0XDW K5DSR N0LEF K2JCC K2ADX N3OOT N9EK KF6JJV W4ATM W4XL
Email-Address dhupp4(at)attbi.com aurand(at)midstatesd.net les(at)cableone.net n0xdw(at)kci.net gary(at)deepskyridge.com ritter(at)privatei.com howmad1(at)cox.net airwavv(at)hotmail.com jhaines50(at)comcast.net klhutch(at)sbcglobal.net gorgenc(at)attbi.com blombardi(at)cfl.rr.com muns3331(at)bellsouth.net
Country USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA

http://www.txastro.com

NexStar11GPS, ex KG7WO

NexStar11GPS NexStar4

NexStar5 Trustee of W4CRC, Collins Radio Club NexStar 5 & Portaball 12.5 NexStar5 NexStar 8i (GPS) NexStar 8i 12"LX200GPS, NexStar5, Questar3.5
WA0GWA lpthomas(at)krell.com K4TCH WD3C KJ7VT tchering(at)bellsouth.net wd3c(at)aol.com howardleeb(at)earthlink.net

# 41 42

First Name Michelle George Danny Walter Carl Enrique Jack Bernd Dave Tom Victor Rick Phil Dieter Mike Bob
Surname Easton Daniel Monge van de Velde Roberts Segre Bird Mludek Balint Skinner Annas Roush Wheeler Kuespert Wolford Bethman
Callsign W5NYV AB4KN AD6SJ PA0ALW K3ZDI XE1ZI K4BRD N6RMC N8IW KF3D KG4FYT KA8BDD W7OX
Email-Address w5nyv(at)yahoo.com ab4kn(at)yahoo.com ad6sj(at)yahoo.com pa0alw(at)zeelandnet.nl ee1958(at)yahoo.com segre(at)att.net.mx k4brd(at)bellsouth.net n6rmc(at)yahoo.com n8iw(at)arrl.net kj3d(at)adelphia.net VAnnas6933(at)aol.com Rick.Roush(at)ncr.com w7ox(at)earthlink.net
Country USA USA USA Netherlands USA Mexico USA USA USA USA USA USA USA Germany USA USA

http://www.qsl.net/ab4kn

NexStar 4 NexStar-5, 8" LX-200, C-14 on a G-11 GEM NexStar 5 NexStar 5, 8 LX200, Stellarvue Nighthawk,ex K0PXL NexStar 5 NexStar N114GT NexStar 8GPS; GS 10" Dob; C5+; Binos; Unimount NexStar N11GPS NexStar 5 http://home.comcast.net/~rbet NexStar 8 hman

PA1AMW pa1amw(at)vanderweiden.net / KB1FOT N2YO/ YO3FWC CT1BT G6YLW W8OV F5VKD / G4SXQ Csufitchi(at)travtech.com ct1bt.evora(at)clix.pt

Ciprian

USA Portugal http://www.qsl.net/ct1bt http://www.wig1.co.uk
NexStar N114GT 8 Celestron Ultima 2000 and Sky-Watcher Celestron G8 on EQ5, runs the Wigmore BBS NexStar N8GPS NexStar 8 Ex G6CXJ, equipment is an FT817 and VX7 handheld
Romualdo Teles Trevor David David Cannon Koch Lemprire
Trevor.Cannon(at)blueyonder.co.u UK k Chagrined(at)yahoo.com david.lempriere(at)free.fr USA France

# 82 83

First Name Paul Dennis Marsha Jim Glen Mike Mike Matt Paul Bradley Pat Mike
Surname Phelps Steele Bundy Bundy Sansoucie Morin Dodd Wilson Shankland Kathrins Benda Tannenbaum
Callsign K8PEP K6KRV KD5MAJ KC5LTN N1XF VE2CJW N4CF K2MFW NT3L N7UYC W3PO/ VQ9PO K2BN
Email-Address therevpep(at)mailblocks.com k6krv(at)qsl.net jmbundy2(at)aol.com jmbundy2(at)aol.com n1xf(at)yahoo.com ve2cjw(at)hotmail.com mike(at)mdodd.com matt(at)mattwilson.com pdshankland(at)Comcast.net n7uyc(at)cox.net w3po(at)juno.com K2bn(at)cox.net
Country USA USA USA USA USA Canada USA USA USA USA USA USA
Remarks NexStar N8GPS, ex DA1PP&DA2PP

http://www.qsl.net/k6krv

NexStar N114GT NexStar N80GT, AMSAT member NexStar N80GT, AMSAT member NexStar N8i, 20m Rockmite CW TRX NexStar N114GT
http://astronomy.mdodd.com Celestron C9.25 on CGE mount http://www.k2mfw.com http://www.hollydome.com Celestron CPC1100 Bino of 2xN114GT, NexStar 130SLT, others NexStar N8GPS NexStar N4GT, ex F6DWY NexStar N8GPS, TenTec Jupiter, flagpole vertical ant. Ex WA2LUL, Celestron CPC 925, Yaesu FT-897, Motorola HT1250 UHF, Yaesu VX-7, Yaesu FT-50, GE Delta GX UHF, Budipole Deluxe, Ericsson MPA NexStar N8GPS, mostly used visually, active DXer on HF incl. SSB, RTTY, CW, PSK using TS950SD, he designed the KT4FY multimodem, member of PCARS

Zahler

David(at)zahler.com

Steven

Groups.steve(at)earthlink.net
http://www.floridaboys.net/
First Name Bob Jose Anibal
Remarks C8-ASGT(XLT), interested in all facets of Ham radio including Echolink, FM repeaters, packet radio Celestron N8i, very interested in satellite communications Nexstar N5, C8, TV Pronto, Hamradio mostly QRP and portable operation, runs the clubs-station K8MHO (see also www.mcmath-hulbert.org).

Scanferla

VA3RJS

Va3rjs(at)yahoo.ca

Canada

LU2FCY

lu2fcy(at)waycom.com.ar

Argentina

Benham

Dad(at)dodgeboy.net

Philip

WA6QJE

Calastro(at)usa.com
http://calastro.fortunecity.co m
Tasco StarGuide 102 with "upgradeable" Celestron hand-controller mounted on an 8-inch pier. Active on HF and radio astronomy (SIMPLE, C- & KU-band) NexStar N8 with NexRemote, 16 Night Sky Truss Dobs w/ ServoCat, Active on 40m&20m in PSK31, member of TAC-SAC & TAC Astronomy Group Celestron CGE w/TAK200K, ED100, active on all bands in all modes up to 10 GHz incl. /MM CPC9.25 , used to operate mostly on 10m and 6m, with Mosley TriBeam

Franco

K6ALF(at)yahoo.com
Jean-Paul Vranken Jeep David B. Ohmann

ON6VS Ex WB2LIO KK5AA

Quetzalco(at)skynet.be

Belgium

davidoh46(at)hotmail.com

Frederick Hunt

Poppafred(at)centurytel.net
http://poppafred.tripod.com//i NexStar CPC 800 XLT with Orion ED80 piggyback. ndex.html 160m to 440MHz with Icom IC7000. Nexstar N8i, Orion 127mm Mak, Celestron shorttube 80 WA, QRV mostly on VHF/UHF and HF with G5RV in attic. NexStar N11GPS, Squint Observatory, licensed 50 yrs NexStar N8GPS, NexStar SLT102

Michael

Jasper

KB1PIE

michael_jasper(at)yahoo.com

Tom Sergei L.

Shinal Ticknor

W4HCP W7MC

Shinalt(at)gmail.com W7mc(at)arrl.net

USA USA

First Name Serg

Paul John

Ashley Lewis

KD6GUP KA8JMT

paul.ashley(at)ca.rr.com Loonewoolf(at)sbcglobal.net

www.robo-works.net

NexStar 130SLT NexStar 8, active on 145 MHz and 440 MHz Nexstar 6SE, WO ZS80FD, Meade ETX 90, Advanced class, ham for 23 years, mostly 2 mtr. repeaters and HF voice including some DX chasing NexStar 11GPS, NexStar 6SE. 3.3M dish, 1296 EME NexStar CPC1100 NexStar4SE NexStar 80GT, QRP only HW-8 NexStar 8SE, ICOM IC-706MKII NexStar N8i, member of SLAS (Salt Lake Astronomical Society) and Utah Rocket Club Celestron NexStar6SE Celestron Advanced GT NexStar6SE, MEADE ETX90 NexStarN5i, Celestron Ultima 2000, BabyNexStar 80mm, Yaesu FT757 for HF, Yaesu FT480

Johnson

Tbjohnson(at)aikenelectric.net
100 Cor 101 Mike J. 102 Nick 103 Charlie 104 Ricardo 105 Larry 106 Harry 107 John 108 Steve 109 Terry

Maas ONeil Graves Brault Silva Holmes McGavran Battleson Miller McLean
VE7BBG KA2FIR G1WKH NR1Q PY6SB K7BPV W5PNY WB0PEX KD6SPB VE3OTY
Ve7bbg(at)shaw.ca Ion_op(at)yahoo.com Nick_graves(at)msn.com Charlesbrault(at)hotmail.com Ricardo.silva(at)wavenet.com.br Larry(at)kijoda.com w5pny(at)arrl.net jbattleson2(at)yahoo.com HavasuSteve(at)gmail.com Terrymc240(at)msn.com
Canada USA UK USA Brazil USA USA USA USA Canada

110 Sandy

Pedalmasher(at)gmail.com
www.brokennecktobrokenrec Celestron NexStar8SE, licensed since 1954 ords.com

First Name

111 Michael 112 Severino 113 Greg 114 Phil 115 Doug 116 Lynn M. 117 Jerry
Wheeler Mastracci Roberts Cooper Person Coffelt Hart
W1VI YV5OF ZS1BI GU0SUP K0DXV W7LTQ K0YM
W1VI(at)comcast.net Mseverino(at)hotmail.com Grr(at)telkomsa.net Pcooper(at)Guernsey.net Doug(at)northroutt.net Coffelt2(at)Comcast.net Hart55555(at)yahoo.com
USA Venezuela South Africa Guernsey USA USA USA
http://home.comcast.net/~w1 Celestron N5i/N8i mount and multiple optics, licensed vi/ since 1960 http://www.qrz.com/yv5of Celestron Astromaster 130EQ, NexStar N5SE Celestron Nexstar 130 SLT, licensed since 1974, founded AMSAT S.A., active on early satellites Celestron NexStar 127SLT, ICOM IC-7800 NexStar GPS, Colorado NexStar N114GT CPC100 perm polar mount, Mallincam EX
vy 55 & 73 de Matthias DD1US Email: DD1US@AMSAT.ORG Homepage: www.dd1us.de