Celestron Wedge for NexStar Evolution and 6SE/8SE 

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Thanks for the humor and for being honest in your live set-up. I needed that. Our hobby has "out-takes" every day if we would just admit it.

Thanks for showing the human side of new equipment set up. I found it entertaining and real world. I hope this will encourage people that are interested in wedge mounts to use the proper wedge. I've seen a few celestron alt az mounts damaged and sometimes ruined with home made wedge designs.

Thanks Chuck! Your presentation is of a real guy (like me) just trying to figure things out. Seems like the astrophotography hobby has far too many snobs who are not willing to help out the beginner but rather get as fancy as possible with their fancy terms and big $$$. Thank you for being a real guy and meeting me where I am at as a beginner.

Thank you! I've never seen someones GOTO fail badly on a youtube video, they always edit that part out. Debugging why your rig wont align right is a critical skill.

Chuck, thanks for sharing! Love your humour & honesty and really enjoy your channel!

Love your video. You sound like me my wedge has been in the box for almost 4 years too. Great good explaining I think I will take mine out of the box now!

The first time I put my Nexstar 11 GPS on a wedge I had the same experience. I was watching this happen and waiting for the inevitable. The sped up video was outstanding! The semaphore hand signals are way too familiar to me.

That third bolt/screw that comes off. It’s meant to screw on your telescope first. It helps you align the other boats. That’s why that mount is open at the top.

Enjoyed this post thoroughly! You have a great sense of humor Chuck!

Kudos to your honesty and fast forwards through nonsense while showing what you did...great technique! I watched this to validate my setup of a DIY wedge and was amused and pleased to see that I am not the only one making poor first judgements! Thumbs up! Great example of the field rotation when using AltAz mounts. Thanks! Subscirbed!

"I tested it already, and it works." Famous last words. Thanks Chuck!

Nice that you demonstrated this. I had same issue with older version of SCT 8E, flipping the position of way the telescope gets oriented on wedge fixed the issue.

So glad I bought the AVX mount for my 8SE OTA. I was real close to buying the wedge. Love the fast forward chipmunk voice!!! LOL

You did an incredible job of describing and showing what a wedge mount is. Please post more instructional videos 🙂

Hey Chuck, I found this entertaining and honest. I expect to go through the same stumbling blocks setting up my equipment when I upgrade. Thanks.

Ha, Chuck. Good fun. I had a wedge for the last few years on my CPC and got the hang of it eventually. It’s actually way more intuitive if you are starting w it than a GEM. Glad you’re finding something to do w your time waiting for clouds to go away haha!!

Chuck, rotate the whole rig 180 degrees. I was yelling! Lol

This reminds me of the first week with my new Scope, LOL! Thank you, sir!!!

Very funny and informative at the same time. Thank you for sharing!

Great channel Chuck, helpful and entertaining 👍

Great video Chuck, thanks for sharing

That exhale at the end....been there brother. Great video, appreciate the down to earth tutorial.

I really enjoyed the way you did this review :) I subscribed to your channel, keep up the good work! Cheers!

Nice one Chuck! Just love the quick fix gaff tape on the telrad!

Hi Chuck I just love your vids. They are so funny and I am learning a lot. Keep them coming. From a complete novice You are the best

Very cool! You sound like me the first time I tried to setup my new Celestron SE 6 telescope. I think I will try the wedge. 😊😊

Nice job Chuck, very interesting and informational!

nice video ,time to take the wedge out and have a go at it again ,great motivation ,maybe i was doing it all wrong, thanks Chuck

Great video, thanks Chuck 👍

Well, very nice video Chucks...!! you made me laugh for good, you made my day...!!!, hope if you can post a video showing some pics with that setup...clear skies...

"What did I do wrong?" I ask that myself too...

Hilarious and informative at the same time. Thanks. Sincerely!

Happy New Year Chuck. Funny, I could hear chipmunks 🐿 helping you install the wedge but I couldn’t see them 🤣.

Fun stuff Chuck!

Happy new year Chuck! I have the same wedge bought for my PCP 800, 4 years ago like you, I never had good result with it so it is taking dust in my basement, you gave me motivation to retry it with 4 more years experience^^. In my memory, it was much complex to setup but with you, everything seems easier! Thanks to you, I could maybe have two rigs! Bigup from Belgium ( the worst country in the world to do astrophotography )

love your videos! keep it up!

great job on the video Mr Chuck ...first time viewer

I really liked seeing the animation with the field rotation. I'm gonna show it to a friend later to help him to better understand why I use an EQ mount. We had a debate about this one night. When I bought my C8 with its fork mount (sand-casted dual arm) I was thinking about getting an EQ wedge and a tripod. Haven't looked back after getting the EQ6-R but I recently had one issue come to mind. When I buy my next OTA which will likely be a wider field refractor or a newt that has a shorter focal length than a C8/8SE. With a focal reducer it is 1280mm. The problem being that if i get another scope and dont want to get another mount is that I could only use one scope at a time. Switching gear would be a bit if a hassle as it would also necessitate rebalancing and probably redoing polar alignment. Come summer there will be days where I won't be able to see polaris. When the seeing is good, I always use Sharpcap and my guider to verify alignment. Redoing it isn't a hassle if it's already aligned. My outdoor cover protects the OTA mount and another cover protects the tripod where it counts. Getting back to the point, your post planted the idea to reconsider. Maybe down the road I could choose to dedicate my C8 to planetary and lunar duty with a wedged and alt-az config. Thanks for the demo and clear explanation. Also, I like that you chosen it to abbreviate alt-az. Good for educating newcomers or less experienced viewers.

Also by the way. I really enjoy your videos. Very entertaining.

Good Video. I am in a social media group based on the Celestron 8se and one of my questions was directly related to whether or not the wedge would be a good investment. Glad i found this.

How could we not be watching up until the end when we know that there are outtakes??? Very cool. I've never seen one of those utilized. Looking forward to Planet season coming back around and I'll be borrowing an SCT from my astronomy club so I can couch my refractor. Clear skies Chuck!

LOL...(if there is larger expression for LOL, please replace) - Oh my Ghosh! Love it Chuck! That's where you started, so you are good at it! Love the Video!

Good visual on field rotation!

New Years resolution for 2020, no more tirades. For me, that lasted about two days. Good luck Chuck.

cool video - helped me out today. thanks.

great video!!! Thanks for the info!!!!!

It's ok to curse Chuck. Starting astrophotography increased my vocabulary of four letter words a whole damn lot.

You are very funny. I liked it very much. Your expressions make me laugh.

I only use this telescope with a hyperstar lens attached to it. So I have the perfect round stars from corner to corner. I used to take long exposures of up to 2 minutes even with this mount and Celestron wedge. But lately the PHD2 has been running like crazy with this mount, probably a mechanical problem and I have to put it on the VX mount for better guiding.I thought I could not buy another stand, but if I want to shoot in one night together with the two telescopes 8 SCT for wide angle shots and 8 HD for distant objects I may have to try AM3 or AM5 mount. As you said, this mount for shooting planets is a good solution. as well as for visual observation. Clear sky!

Love your videos. You are too mutch ! JM from France

i really enjoy your video's I'm a newbie at this so "pays to listen".

I think after all this time we need a GoFundMe page to get Chuck a new base for his Telrad!!!! Keep up the good work Chuck :D

I also use my nexstar mount with wedge for timelapses or widefield astrophotography. You can just get a supercheap L bracket mount for a dslr and with 105mm lenses and with an average polar alignment you can get decent wide 3min exposures of constellations and even some deep space objects. Other option I would recommend especially because you are a vlogger, you can just setup your nextar without a wedge and shoot a timelapse of a weather outside and use it as a B-roll of your vlog especially nice to see the timelapse of your telescopes moving in time.

Very informative. It was useful to see the difference between the EQ and Alt-Az mount behavior with the Jupiter animation.

THANK YOU FOR THIS VIDEO VERY HELPFUL

Nice video chuck made me laugh 👍👽

Hi! Thank you for the grat video and information. Was that amazing moving video from Jupiter (using the Alt-Az mount) done with the NexStar8SE? (or other 8" telescope?)

It's always easy to tell when someone isn't familiar with a fork mount and how it mounts to a wedge. The third Bolt actually you screw into the base of your telescope a couple of threads that allows you to set the telescope on to the wedge and then you can use that as a pivot point to align the other bolts. As far as the wedge position on the tripod there should be a tangent arm that connect to the side of the tripod head and aligns between the Azimuth adjuster bolts. On your German equatorial mounts that's the pin that's on the top of the tripid head and for a Fork tripod it's located on the side of the mount and you usually have to attach it as part of the wedge kit.

Appreciate your honest video with real life "what did i do wrong?" Because i would think the same thing haha

A friend of mine has one of these toy too, he uses it with the new nexstar evolution base though, aligns it with sharpcap and guides it via the handcontroller and pulse guiding, in his words: nice to have around, wouldn't replace a true GEQ mount but at least it doesn't have to do a meridian flip

I have an 8se, your video is very helpful and I'm considering to buy this wedge. Does it have a motor to track and if so how does it work? Anything special you have to do once you have it aligned to track?

Could you tell me how to take picture of the celestial bodies at north using a wedge mount after polar alignment?It seems my camera always get stuck with the basement when the tube pointing at north.

The one loose attachment bolt should be loosely installed first so you can hang the mount and scope and not worry about trying to hold it all while you install the other two.

I don’t have a celestron mount or wedge, but am sure interested in planetary, and would love to shoot some animations. However, I think i need like a televue powermate to get out something good with my 8” newt. Nice video Chuck!

Yeah I still have mine, no worries about for meridian flips, my next mount going to be Avalon M-Uno Single Fork EQ for features you demonstrated Oh the memories.

Hey Chuck! Wanted to ask how was your experience with this wedge later, I wanted to buy the CPC 1100 Deluxe telescope and I was thinking of buying this wedge as it'll enable me to do some astrophotography, Is it worth it or should I go for some other telescope?

Good video Chuck but question about your Jupiter animation ... How did you get the moons and Jupiter without one over or under exposed ?? Thanks ,,,, keep videos coming

Hey Chuck. I noticed on some of your recent video’s you aren’t using the wedge on your 8se. How come? I thought it’s the sort of thing that once it’s on you’d keep it there?

Ty for liking my photos on Instagram chuck i know they are garbage but doing baby steps for now, i am also using nexstar evolution on a wedge, on good nights i can reach 3minutes exposure with good guiding but most of the time time i cant, i also face problems polar aligning the telescope because its not pointing north like Gem so polemaster wont work and sharpcap wont work, allstarpolar alignment gives me a different reading each time, so i went with a phd drift alignment method. Also telescope or camera running into the mount is common but i am learning to use it. I bought a eq6-r now waiting for it to arrive excited as hell

@Chuck's Astrophotography - Hey Chuck, do you have any updates? Have you had a chance to put this to use for EAA? Our club has been doing virtual star parties where we cast images to a Discord server. My Alt Az Evolution works ok, but not great. After a few minutes of live stacking you can see the field rotation errors. I was thinking about getting one of these to improve the stacking.

Great vid. If interested, you can also easily digitally remove that field rotation issue.

It's funny how some of the valuable stuff ends up being sped up for the sake of keeping the video short instead of speeding up the parts of him aligning the screws.

Great video Chuck! I might have to pull out my old 4SE and try the built in wedge. I was never able to get the EQ working properly on it, not that I use it for planetary only for a quick grab'n go visual mount. Thanks.

I know that I'm my lx200 classic we point both the optical tube and the mount to Polaris but on the newer lx200 GPS we point the mount this newer way. All it is is setting up a basic home position anyways whether you put it at the celestial equator for the optical tube or at the celestial Pole. It's just a different way to write the algorithm for pointing.

Hey Chuck, tried this same thing a couple of years ago. When your scope is set to it's home position ( arrows aligned) it should be facing north, pointing toward the ground. If everything is correct and you point the scope straight up with the mount it will be pointing toward Polaris. Think as if you were at the north pole, your base would be flat and Polaris would be straight overhead. If you really want it to work well, replace the 8SE with a 6SE or 4SE. Check to make sure there is little to no movement in your base, if so you need to tighten your drive gears. Hope this helps, you have been a big help and inspiration over the years.

Chuck!! I found you on Reddit recently, your stuff inspired me to get into the hobby. I was racking my brain with this wedge cause I was having the exact same issue you were on the first attempt! This video confirmed my suspicion, I gotta pivot the tripod 180°! One question then - how do I find the meridian when I'm looking southward through the eyepiece??

Hey Chuck, can you tell me about the stability of the wedge with the single fork mount attached? I was hoping to do more than planetary photos. How much is the wedge going to improve my ability to capture non planetary objects? I just can't afford a nice EQ mount at the moment. Love your page and your Instagram. Thank you.

That was entertaining... :-D

There is a polar alightment feature in the HC so can aligh to pole even if you cannot see any pole star. Also EQ south is is southern hemisphere

I live at very low latitude, 3 degree above the equator. Can i use this wedge without my scope hitting the base or becomes very tippy?

Great job Chuck!!! Would you like to try your RASA on this mount and the wedge? The camera will be up and therefore no risk of it running into the mount base or the wedge...

It's not the scope that gets polar aligned, it's the mount. The base of the mount has to be pointing at Polaris. Basically, the arm holding the scope, that is perpendicular to the base should be pointing at Polaris.

Yeah, alt-az Mounts in EQ-Mode always confuze me because I always forget that the actual RA-Axis is the Footprint of the Mount and therefore has to Point to the Celestial Pole. Not the Scope. Nice Video, I really apreaciate this "little" things! Regards, Marc

Chuck , the other day you put up a video of you trying to image a comet and you made a video of it. What program did you use , Sharpcap or sgp ? And how you did it. I have made videos with web cam but not a ZWO. How would you do it?

I did get the Celestron Equatorial Wedge for my NexStar 8SE, but I found it very heavy and clunky. I ended up selling it to buy a second-hand Advanced GT equatorial mount, and I made a profit. I use the Alt-Az for bright planets and the Moon, and the AGT for DSOs and faint planets

Awesome, Chuck! I just got a CGX, and am now entering a phase of wanting rapid upgrades as well. My wallet hates me Lol

How can I adjust the wedge and what pole height I need?? Very informative and entertaining video 😂👍

haha i was laughing at the voice in the sped up parts! The Helium voice always makes me laugh! haha. and yes, i did last that long my friend! haha i always watch your vids beginning to end! Great vid Chuck! Best wishes for 2020!

Chuck, I have question . I have nexstar 8se, should I get a equatorial mount or wedge connected with stock az mount is enough ?

This was really helpful I have 5se with the built in wedge and have no idea how equatorial alignments works with a wedge alt/az mount combination. 2 other youtube videos actually have the wedge facing the opposite way to yours with the wedge facing up towards polar north so that the telescope is vertical in relation to the arm which doesnt seem to make sense to me. Also I star sense which i use in the skyportal app on my phone so I do not use the hand controller at all. If anyone can give me direction on how to use these 2 things to EQ auto align i would be eternally greatful.

do you have any idea where can I find this wedge and what's the item description on it?

Why did this accessory have to cost 300 on the more expensive ones (6SE and 8SE) and the cheaper ones (4SE and 5SE) already come with it! It should be the opposite and the more expensive ones should be the ones that have the wedge. I'm annoyed because I wanted to check out some galaxies and nebulae but the 5SE. specifically designed for long exposure astrophotography because of the wedge and the aperture still being able to see the full Orion Nebula and Andromeda Galaxy is ironically back-ordered and we won't be able to get it within 2 - 4 weeks and I highly doubt that it will be in stock again by that time. I would be patient but my birthday is early November.

I have a Nexstar 6 and I am considering getting the equatorial wedge. Is it worth it? In other words, did it improve your tracking accuracy significantly, or should I just replace and get an equatorial mount instead?

Funny! Things going wrong is sorta my “MO” so far in this hobby. 🙂

We have some nice weather coming in tomorrow but it's super cold. We are going to set up the scope and run it remotely and do some EAA from inside. We did it last year with my 9.25 Evo and had a good time, but was thinking of getting an wedge for it at some point.

Jeez this look like its gonna be a big challenge with a heavy CPC fork mount OTA.

"i will try to stay more calm this year" I say that too but i still end up yelling at the moon and clouds

If you put a camera on that need to make sure it doesn't hit the tripod/wedge. It almost did when you went to Navi the second time.

pure comedy at its best :0