Where have all the stars gone?

[1ponders] (Paul) · #1 20-11-2004, 12:05 PM

I hope someone can help me with this and that it is not a problem with my hand controller. (I've been posting this all over the place)

I've had my GPS 8" for about 7weeks now and while getting a bit of play time inside is fine (*Thanks* Astronomy Gods

) I finally managed to get a good week in this week. Excellent actually

By the sounds of it I've experienced a few of the usual teething problems, Aligning, finding com ports on computers, calibrating sensors, Yadda Yadda. But this one has me stumped.

I popped outside tonight to quickly whip off a couple of photos of the moon (first ones with this scope

) and ran into something strange. Many of the named stars are missing. Well not exactly missing but there are blanks when I scroll through the list. Makes it fun when its a quarter moon and your limited to bright stars and many of them appear to be missing, let me tell you. Finally managed to get an alignment using one star alignment of one of the few remaining stars on the list that I knew or was observable.

Anyway, took my shots then had a bit of a play around with the "blank" spaces in the Named Stars menu. Scrolled through to where I thought Rigel should be and away the scope slew, right on to Rigel. But no name on the first line of the display and when I went looking for more info on the star in the menu up popped, under where "Rigel" would appear Beta Orion. What is going on?

The only thing I can think of is I downloaded an autostar updated the other day and a load of new tours. Could this have deleted the names of the stars.

I hope someone here can help as I'm a bit stumped about it at the moment.

Thanks
Paul

iceman (Mike) · #2 22-11-2004, 05:51 AM

I can't help you as I don't own a goto scope like that, but a few around here do, hopefully they'll be able to help you.

Have you tried meade's support email or any lx200 yahoo groups or something? It could be something to do with the auto-update.. hopefully the fix is something as simple as downloading a new update for it.

[1ponders] (Paul) · #3 22-11-2004, 10:38 AM

Thanks for the response Iceman.

I've got the issue sorted out now. It pays to spread the questions round as many forums as you can find. Managed to find someone over at yahoo that was able to help.

Basically had to redownload the firmware for the Autostar controller. Guess like everything else with this hobby its been a live and learn situation.

Cheers