I have been very pleased using Celestron’s StarSense Accessory (SSA) on both my CG-5 and SE mounts. It really makes alignment quick and easy without having to sometimes put your body in weird positions trying to see that pesky star you want to add to your alignment. It also completely eliminates the need to use an eyepiece to perform the alignment and then replace your eyepiece with your video camera, and refocus … while making sure you don’t disturb your good alignment. Of course you can perform an alignment with your standard hand controller using a video camera, as long as your finder scope is positioned well itself so that when a star is centered in your finder scope, the star will also be in the field of view of your video camera ... and if your video camera is already fairly close to focus. If you use the StarSense Accessory, you do not even need a finder scope for an alignment. In fact you do not even have to have your video camera in focus yet, or for that matter the video camera does not even have to be turned on. I turn on my mount and start the auto align process with my video camera already in place, but don’t bother with the focus until the alignment is complete. Then I slew to a bright star, put a focus mask over the end of my scope, make sure my camera is in good focus, remove the mask and am ready to begin viewing.
With auto align, if I change out any of my optics before beginning my viewing session (focal reducers, barlow, video camera, etc), I can wait until the system is aligned and tracking before focusing the new setup. This is especially helpful when using an Alt-Az mount since it does not begin tracking until the mount is aligned.
I have added a JMI remote focus control to my C8, which when used with the SSA allows me to get everything in place both outside and inside before I turn anything on. I then power everything on at the telescope, start the auto align process, go inside and power on my laptop and start up my video monitoring and control software. When the auto align is complete, I slew to a bright star and check my focus and am ready to begin.
With auto align, if I change out any of my optics before beginning my viewing session (focal reducers, barlow, video camera, etc), I can wait until the system is aligned and tracking before focusing the new setup. This is especially helpful when using an Alt-Az mount since it does not begin tracking until the mount is aligned.
I have added a JMI remote focus control to my C8, which when used with the SSA allows me to get everything in place both outside and inside before I turn anything on. I then power everything on at the telescope, start the auto align process, go inside and power on my laptop and start up my video monitoring and control software. When the auto align is complete, I slew to a bright star and check my focus and am ready to begin.
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