Celestron Nexstar GoTo Setup System

The Three-Part Setup Breakdown

Assuming your scope is outdoors, assembled, powered up, and the finder is aligned, the setup can be broken down into these three key parts:

1. One-time settings:

   You only have to do these once, unless you are transporting the scope around the UK.

   • Location (Latitude & Longitude): You can enter the nearest city (e.g., London or Northampton), which will be good enough. For Milton Keynes, you might use 000 45 00 W, 52 07 00 N. The location does not need to be super accurate, but the default USA settings won’t work!

   • Time Zone: This is Universal Time, or zero (i.e., London time).

   • Daylight Saving Time (DST): Use your common sense here: in winter the answer is No.

   With a brand new mount, you will be prompted to set these. Once used, you'll need the manual to search the menu tree to check or change them. The mount will save all these settings.

2. The Night’s Settings:

   You have to enter these each time you power the mount up.

   • Time and Date: Note that the date is in the US format MM DD YYYY. Time uses the 24-hour clock. The time is not saved when powered off.

   • You may have to confirm the Daylight Saving setting.

3. The GoTo Alignment:

   Choose one of the several options available.

   • SkyAlign: Uses three stars (or objects) and is mainly intended for beginners who don’t know the names of the bright points of light in the sky.

   • Two Star / Auto Two Star: Use these if you do know your bright stars.

   • One Star: Will also work, but will give you a less accurate alignment, especially if you did not accurately level the mount.

   • Solar System: A very handy option if you want to observe, e.g., Jupiter. You can forget the star aligning and just align on the planet. This will also align for other objects, but not very accurately.

   Alignment Step Process

   Aligning on an object is a multi-step process:

   1. First align with the finder.
   2. Then coarse align with the telescope, terminated by 'Enter'.
   3. Then fine align with the telescope, terminated by 'Align'.

   Note that these mounts are not intended to be used in a manual, non-GoTo mode, or without power.