4 Next, use the arrow buttons on the hand control to slew the telescope towards any bright celestial object in the sky Align the
object with the red dot of the finderscope and press ENTER
5 If the finderscope has been properly aligned with the telescope tube, the alignment star should now be visible inside the field
of view of the eyepiece The hand control will prompt you to precisely center the bright alignment star in the center of the
eyepiece and press the ALIGN button This will accept the star as the first alignment position There is no need to adjust the
slewing rate of the motors after each alignment step The NexStar+ automatically selects the best slewing rate for aligning
objects in both the finderscope and the eyepiece
6 For the second alignment object, choose a bright star or planet as far as possible from the first alignment object Once
again, use the arrow buttons to center the object in the finderscope and press ENTER Once centered in the eyepiece,
press ALIGN
7 Repeat the process for the third alignment star When the telescope has been aligned to the final stars, the display will read
"Match Confirmed" Press BACK to display the names of the three bright objects you aligned to, or press ENTER to accept
these three objects for alignment You are now ready to find your first object
TIPS FOR USING SKYALIGN
Remember the following alignment guidelines to make using SkyAlign as simple and accurate as possible
• Level the tripod before you begin alignment The time/site information along with a level tripod will help the telescope better
predict the available bright stars and planets that are above the horizon
• Select alignment stars that are as far apart in the sky as possible For best results, make sure that the third alignment star
does not lie in a straight line between the first two stars This may result in a failed alignment
• Don't worry about confusing planets for stars when selecting alignment objects SkyAlign works with the four brightest
planets (Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars) and the Moon In addition to the planets, the hand control has more than 80 bright
alignment stars to choose from (down to 2 5 magnitude)
• In rare instances, SkyAlign may not be able to determine which three alignment objects were selected This can
happen when a bright planet or the Moon passes near one of the brighter stars In situations like these, it is best to
try to again and avoid aligning to either of these objects
• When centering the objects, slew the telescope with the same final movements as the direction of the GoTo approach For
example, if the scope normally finishes a GoTo with the front of the scope moving right and up, center all three alignment
objects in the eyepiece using the right and up arrow buttons last (The up/down arrows reverse at slew rates of 6 or lower)
Approaching the star from this direction will eliminate much of the backlash between the gears and provide the most
accurate alignment possible The default approach will be up and right on a first alignment or after a factory reset
• Defocusing the image during alignment can make it easier to determine the center of the eyepiece With a bright star
defocused to about the apparent size of a small coin, the edges of the circle can be adjusted through the motor controls
until they are equidistant from the edges of the eyepiece
AUTO TWO-STAR ALIGN
Auto Two-Star Align requires all the same time/site information as SkyAlign Once you enter this information, NexStar will
prompt you to select and point the telescope at one known star in the sky The NexStar SE now has all the information it
needs to automatically choose a second star that will assure the best possible alignment Once selected, the telescope will
automatically slew to that second alignment star to complete the alignment
With the NexStar SE set up outside with its accessories attached and the tripod leveled, follow these steps to perform an
Auto Two-Star Align:
1 Once the telescope is powered on, press ENTER to begin alignment
2 Use the SCROLL UP and SCROLL DOWN buttons to select Auto Two-Star Align Press ENTER
3 The hand control will display the last time and location information that was entered into the hand control Press ENTER
to accept the current information or press BACK to manually edit the information (see SkyAlign section on page 10
for detailed instruction on entering time/site information)
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ENGLISH