Motor-powered Telescopes - Battery Life?

jumpguy

Hey everyone. I'm getting a Celestron 114 SLT telescope soon. After doing abit of research into them, I'm pretty happy with it (getting it as a gift). The only concern I have is the battery life. At 12 AA battery's a go, I don't want it to be eating up the batteries. I've looked into one of Celestron's powerpacks and they're expensive but worth it if the batteries keep running out (which would be frustrating). Anyone have any advice for this? Are the powerpacks worth it?

barr toco

hi
in my opinion id favour the power tank,
thers two celestron power tanks and i have the smalller of the two,
i find if the power gets a bit low the goto system go crazy, i dont under stand why this happens but it does, so it easy to keep the tank well charged, as it will be difficult so know how strong the batteries are after a bit of use. id say you would need to replace them pritty often to keep a good feed of power to the mount,
hope this helps.

calchas

For small mounts battery power works out ok. I have a small tracking mount that uses 4xAA batteries, but I only track for short periods and in RA only. The Meade ETX70 does ok on 8xAAA batteries. My larger 2 (LX200, EQ6) mounts eat C2 batteries in minuits, both do a lot more than just track and move much larger loads. For these a car starter power pack works great. If 12V is what you need (or can use) then any of these is ok.

Therefore if you do want to go for a power pack have a good look round, including car shops, for the best deal. I have 2 from Halfords that were great deals, the 40Ahr one last me all night easy including powering camers and netbooks. Just make sure they have a 12 cgar lighter output.

Hope this helps
Calchas

jumpguy

barr toco wrote: »

hi
in my opinion id favour the power tank,
thers two celestron power tanks and i have the smalller of the two,
i find if the power gets a bit low the goto system go crazy, i dont under stand why this happens but it does, so it easy to keep the tank well charged, as it will be difficult so know how strong the batteries are after a bit of use. id say you would need to replace them pritty often to keep a good feed of power to the mount,
hope this helps.

Thanks for your reply. I'm getting the telescope from the US. Just wondering if I need to get the powerpack from the US too (are any of the connectors different?)
How long does the smaller of the powerpacks last and how much did it cost?

calchas wrote: »

For small mounts battery power works out ok. I have a small tracking mount that uses 4xAA batteries, but I only track for short periods and in RA only. The Meade ETX70 does ok on 8xAAA batteries. My larger 2 (LX200, EQ6) mounts eat C2 batteries in minuits, both do a lot more than just track and move much larger loads. For these a car starter power pack works great. If 12V is what you need (or can use) then any of these is ok.

Therefore if you do want to go for a power pack have a good look round, including car shops, for the best deal. I have 2 from Halfords that were great deals, the 40Ahr one last me all night easy including powering camers and netbooks. Just make sure they have a 12 cgar lighter output.

Hope this helps
Calchas

Yeah it's 12v as far as I know. Needs 12 (I think, might be 9, but I'm pretty sure it's 12). I haven't got it yet. I would prefer getting a Celestron Power Pack just for the sake of compatibility. As my question above, the telescope is from the US, does it need any special connectors? How long do the powerpacks last?

barr toco

i can only comment on the celestron tank as ive never had any other,
mine cost i think 65euro in shop, il use mine for about 4 hours and then id charge, now it would go longer but as ive pointed out before my mount needs a good constant feed or it goes bananas:D , and thats the last thing id need after gettiing set up, so just keep it topped up, as the connections goes im not sure, the power tank comes with a connection but im not sure if this fits straight into all celestron scopes, what i would recomend you do is simply go on to the celestron websit and go to their help and support page and you can send them an email through their site explaining your question about the connections and they email you, and bobs ur uncle, i did this before when i had question and they replyd the next day.

jumpguy

Thanks for all your advice. One more question, where did ye order Celestron Powertanks? The Celestron website or somewhere else (do tell)?

barr toco

jumpguy wrote: »

Thanks for all your advice. One more question, where did ye order Celestron Powertanks? The Celestron website or somewhere else (do tell)?

ok, i got mine for 65 euro in astronomy ireland shop in dublin, it was the smaller of the two, i checked ther web site ther but its not advertised on it, just to see if the price is the same now as that was nearly 2 years ago but id imagine its nearly thhe same, you could contact north down telescopes aswell and compare prices, but with a small purchase i doubt their be any major savings

barr toco

jumpguy wrote: »

Thanks for all your advice.


your welcome