My Celestron nexstar 8se was working ok, but now when I want to observe sth, eg the moon all I see is a round bright light. Before that I could see the craters clearly. What can I do to fix the probl

What eye piece (EP) are you using? It is much better to start off with a low power eyepiece (say a 25mm - the higher the mm on the EP the lower the power) as a high power EP (say a 10mm) will give a very narrow field of view and will be much more difficult to get things into focus.


Try focusing on a terrestrial object, like a tree top, to get the hang of the focuser and then try the moon. I have an 8SE and it can be fairly finicky on the focus until used to it.



Most of the stars and planets will be little more than dots. You should be able to make out the phases of Venus, the bands on Jupiter and some of its moons and the rings of Saturn, but if you are expecting Hubble type images then sorry to disappoint you.


There are also times when the skies appear clear but due to "seeing" conditions, sharp focus is not possible. Remember we are looking through a few kilometres of moving air.

Try joining http://www.astronomyforum.net They are a friendly and helpful group.

This is a well documented problem with that scope

http://www.celestron.com/c3/support3/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=2434



http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbarchive/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/60724/page/72/view/collapsed/sb/9/o/all

I'm having the same problem with my Astromaster 114 EQ . I can see better than the scope , but it is clear when I focus on images about 35 40 away in the daylight. I am now ready to trash this thing. For I had a Meade many years ago and it was great ,but I gave it to a friend to use, but he broke it. Next time Meade.

First questions:Do you have a registered version of the software? What operating system do you use?(version, service pack version)Do you get any errors?What are those errors?

Reset the hand controller and reload the firmware. You will need a special cable available from Celestron to load the firmware. The software is available for free on the Celestron web site.

http://www.celestron.com/c3/home.php



www.telescopeman.org
www.telescopeman.info
www.telescopeman.us

This means that the hand control has lost communication with the electronics board within the base of the telescope. The number following this message will indicate the address of the component that has lost communication. 16 indicates the azimuth or RA motor board, 17 the altitude (declination) motor board. Unfortunately, this number doesn't tell why the error has occurred.

To clear the no response messages, repeatedly press UNDO. This fix may be only temporary and does not address the potential underlying problem.

You may want to send it in/return it for repairs.

The focuser may be broken. Contact Celestron for repairs here:

http://www.celestron.com/c3/page.php?PageID=37

Yes, that's the point of it.

Remove the entire (full diameter) cap for stellar and planetary viewing, or just the smaller diameter central cap for viewing the Moon which is far brighter and is too bright without either adding a neutral density filter or by partially masking the optical tube assembly.

The Rate Control only works for moving the telescope using the arrow keys. It does NOT work while doing an alignment, and GOTOs always slew at the max rate of 9.

For any other issues I would suggest you first RESET the hand controller and see if this corrects the problem and if NOT then reload the latest hand controller and or motor controller firmware, using the Celestron update cable and a computer.

The city lights will not hamper planetary viewing. Excessive power is a common mis-conception. Use 80x or so for best viewing. That would be about a 4mm eyepiece. Start with lower powers and work upwards in easy steps. The greater the power, the narrower the field of view, and it becomes very hard to find anything at all.