Celestron's "Sky Align" system

I have and use a Celestron NexStar 8i computerized SCT telesope. I usually align by use of Celestron's "Sky Align" system which effectively models the sky on the basis of 3 bright objects (stars or planets) after the precise geographical location and local time of the viewing site have been entered into its computer. Sometimes, at "public outreach" star parties, before the sky is dark enough for anything except the moon, I use that moon and the somewhat less precise "solar alignment" system; and later, when it's darker, I turn off the scope and realign with the "Sky Align" system.
Question: Is there a way to turn off the telescope's tracking motor while keeping its clock running, so that I don't need to turn the power off for the second alignment, but simply tell the telescope's computer that I now want to realign with another alignment system and use the saved location and current date/time for it?

Hi Herbert,
I have the 6" NexStar and I haven't found park on it like on the Meade telescope's. If it's on there, I don't know what it's called by celestron or where it is, I've looked for it also and I don't think it has that feature. If I'm wrong I hope someone will let us know.
Regards,
Darrell

Herbert…

I have a CPC-800, but I suspect the NexStar 8i handles this function the same.
[1] Hit UNDO as needed to back out of all menus.
[2] Hit ALIGN and follow the prompts to replace either your first object or UNASSIGNED (or hit UP or DOWN to replace the other one).
[3] After you're done with this object, you can hit ALIGN again and replace the other object.

Although SkyAlign uses three objects, this "manual" alignment can only do two.

Darrell and Fred: Thanks for your responses. I'll experiment to see what can be done. But I suspect I won't be able to move from having aligned on a single "solar system" object to a 3-object "Sky Align" procedure without turning the power off and then on again (my location would then still be saved, but not the date and time).

I think in the menu there is an option to turn off tracking or hibernate it on the eq mounts ,what version is the firmware? I'll set up at night and leave it set up with hibernate still retains allinment .HTH
Pete

Thanks to all of you who have responded to the question I posed to initiate this thread. Although my telescope can apparently not "hibernate" or "park," I can switch from polar alignment to a more precise method without having to turn it off and start from scratch, as follows:
(1) At the outset I always level the top of the tripod with a spirit level device I made; and I enter the geographical location of my observing site to an accuracy that is within less than 100 yards and the date & time to an accuracy within 2 or 3 seconds.
(2) If the sky is still too bright to see alignment objects for "Sky Align" but there is a moon in the sky, I use the moon for "solar system" alignment.
(3) Later, when it has gotten dark, I do a re-alignment by centering a familiar bright star or planet. press the "undo" button until the "NexStar" reference appears, and then press "align." The telescope's computer then asks me whether I want to re-align "unassigned," and with the familiar bright object centered in the eyepiece I do so.
(4) I am now aligned on the basis of 2 objects, the original solar system (i.e., moon) object and the new one.
(5) If I go through this re-alignment process again, I can replace the moon with another star or bright planet. That may be desirable, since the original alignment with a moon that is either gibbous or crescent involves a bit of a rough approximation as to where the center of the moon's disk is in my eyepiece, and more precision is possible with a pin-point object.
I successfully tested this process last night (using Saturn for the original "solar system" alignment in a moonless sky).