LX200: writing guided tours

[Rodstar]

To all of the LX200 owners out there, I would be interested in your experiences in writing your own guided tours and entering your own user objects onto Autostar II.

I have been doing some double star observing in the last few days while the moon is full. One frustration I have had is that a lot of the doubles commonly referred in articles or lists on double stars in particular constellations are not on the Autostar database (that's right, 147,000 objects just aren't enough!).

So, to start with, I am going to enter into the database the objects from the last few nights that were not on the database, using the "Creating User Objects" function. Whilst this is fix in the short term, I'd rather get onto the more serious art of creating guided tours, by Constellation, for doubles.

Are there any tricks I should know, beyond what is contained in pages 56-59 of the manual? How much is the interface cable, required to transfer the data from my computer to Autostar suite? Is there a cheaper alternative to buying the official Meade cable, such as simply using a standard USB cable?

One issue I am particularly concerned about is how much memory the LX200 can handle. For instance, if I was to write a guided tour for 70 constellations, each with, say, 30 doubles, would that max out the memory?

[AndrewJ]

Gday Rod

There is a tour writing pdf on the meade site
http://www.meade.com/support/autotours.html
that covers most tour writing tricks, but it is out of date for some items
( Ie landmarks )
Writing tours is simple enough, but another option is to use the
"Special User Objects" vs the "User Objects"
User objects is a single list with predefined headers
The ASII also has 20 "extra" user definable lists for users who want to define their own data. As such, before going out, you could theoretically set up 20 constellations, then just toggle between them.
Meade dont highlight this functionality too well, and their updater isnt very friendly dealing with it either, but it works.
To that end, I have written an app for working with LX200GPS scopes that allows you to read/write all your user data, incl tours, satellites, comets, user objects etc, in a much more user friendly manner than the Meade ASU. You can even read an existing tour back out of your scope and read it in plain text, to see if it needs modifying.

As to memory,the ASII has about 450k of "user" memory, but this has to hold ALL your user data, trining, sites, addresses, PEC, SMT, tours, asteroids, comets, user objects etc etc.
If it fills up, the scope will do what it calls a garbage collect where it will reinitialise its memory and only copy back the valid bits, so freeing up space, but you are ultimately limited in size.

As to a cable, if you bought an LPI etc, you got the cable with it.
You cant use a USB cable, as the scope only talks with serial commands, and needs an RJ12 connector to fit into the scope
To make your own is simple enough, its just three wires connected in the right order.
Can supply a wiring diag if yr interested in making one.
Only takes ten mins, and costs a few dollars.

Andrew

[Rodstar]

Andrew, I greatly appreciate the information.

I sold my LPI last year, and parted with the cable in the same sale.....but no dramas, Bintel sells the cable for $45, and, as you say, if I got really keen, I could make it. I'll let you know if I need the wiring diagram.