Cg-5GT Heavy duty German equatorial mount

Hi guys! Just got this new telescope a celestron C6 -SGT With a german goto equatorial mount. So far i am still struggling with the alignment, and it woul be great if you guys could give me some advice. First problem is that the altitude axis on the mount does not go below 30 degrees, so I removed the front altitude screw, and now I can go down to 28, which is suboptimal as my latitude is N 20. I wander if this difference is important enough to mess up with the entire alignment. Should I polar align the telescope with polaris, or not? Is it important to point the telescope towards Polaris before start the 2 star alignment process, or any position is ok? I am pretty sure I am putting the coordinates, date, and time correctly, and I am following all the alignment steps as instructed in the manual, but w/o good results. Another question is can I replace the telescope bar counter weight to a lighter one? The one that came with the telescope weights 11lb. If so what is the minimum weight that I can use, given my OTA is a C6? A telrad, finder scope and a diagonal are the only extras.
I might be messing up somewhere, because even centering the objects in the eyepiece using the directional buttons, and Adding 3 calibrating stars the goto accuracy still sucks, with an error of around 20 degrees. PLEASE somebody help!!!

Thanks for reading!

Gustavo

Gustavo,
Before you power up you must the set altitude to your latitude 20°, and the scope should be pointing at Polaris. If you can't see Polaris adjust the latitude and move the tripod (keeping it level) so you can see polaris in your scope or finder. Then power up.

Gustavo Westin said:

Hi guys! Just got this new telescope a celestron C6 -SGT With a german goto equatorial mount. So far i am still struggling with the alignment, and it woul be great if you guys could give me some advice. First problem is that the altitude axis on the mount does not go below 30 degrees, so I removed the front altitude screw, and now I can go down to 28, which is suboptimal as my latitude is N 20. I wander if this difference is important enough to mess up with the entire alignment. Should I polar align the telescope with polaris, or not? Is it important to point the telescope towards Polaris before start the 2 star alignment process, or any position is ok? I am pretty sure I am putting the coordinates, date, and time correctly, and I am following all the alignment steps as instructed in the manual, but w/o good results. Another question is can I replace the telescope bar counter weight to a lighter one? The one that came with the telescope weights 11lb. If so what is the minimum weight that I can use, given my OTA is a C6? A telrad, finder scope and a diagonal are the only extras.
I might be messing up somewhere, because even centering the objects in the eyepiece using the directional buttons, and Adding 3 calibrating stars the goto accuracy still sucks, with an error of around 20 degrees. PLEASE somebody help!!!

Thanks for reading!


Gustavo

http://www.celestron.com/c3/support3/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=1992

The article does not say how low you can go. If you can't get it all the way to 20 degree's, that will be a problem. Being 8 degree's off of true North won't work.

Seems you have been asking about this all over the place....google found a number of sites....Surely someone has given you the bad news already. But it was designed to work from 30 to 60 or so.....as you said you were able to gain a couple degrees by removing the adjustment bolt but you really are pretty much out of luck beyond that.

Gustavo Westin said:

Hi guys! Just got this new telescope a celestron C6 -SGT With a german goto equatorial mount. So far i am still struggling with the alignment, and it woul be great if you guys could give me some advice. First problem is that the altitude axis on the mount does not go below 30 degrees, so I removed the front altitude screw, and now I can go down to 28, which is suboptimal as my latitude is N 20. I wander if this difference is important enough to mess up with the entire alignment. Should I polar align the telescope with polaris, or not? Is it important to point the telescope towards Polaris before start the 2 star alignment process, or any position is ok? I am pretty sure I am putting the coordinates, date, and time correctly, and I am following all the alignment steps as instructed in the manual, but w/o good results. Another question is can I replace the telescope bar counter weight to a lighter one? The one that came with the telescope weights 11lb. If so what is the minimum weight that I can use, given my OTA is a C6? A telrad, finder scope and a diagonal are the only extras.
I might be messing up somewhere, because even centering the objects in the eyepiece using the directional buttons, and Adding 3 calibrating stars the goto accuracy still sucks, with an error of around 20 degrees. PLEASE somebody help!!!

Thanks for reading!

Gustavo