Auto-align for Meade Scopes

[FOOTPRINT]

Hi All,
Just received Jan. edition of Astronomy, and note Meade have an upgrade software (free downlod) for doing an auto-align with their scopes, finds three stars for you and does a compensated alignment (Video on the Website showing how) three different versions of the software for different scopes, look at:
www.meade.com/autoalign

cheers.....Jim

posting their instruction sheet...

[h0ughy (David)]

Now if they could make and do an auto polar align for a GE mount , that would be good. Good idea though, shows merit!

[xstream (John)]

Jim,
Checking out the new auto-align it's the same as the old 2 star alignment.
The differance is it doesn't tell you the name of the star to centre, it says centre the brightest star. If you want to know what star it is you just press ? for the name.
I guess it's basically to try and help making alignment easier for those that have no idea what star is what.
Now if Meade did bring out a 3 star alignment like Celestron, that would be a huge improvement and bonus.

[acropolite (Phil)]

I found that it doesn't work when my LX is on my back deck due to the metal railing's effect on the LNT sensor. I found it frustrating not knowing what it was searching for, plus when canopus was high in the sky it simply didn't appear in the (automatic) selection list. It would be nice if Meade would just concentrate on getting one bug free release instead of leaping from one stupid idea to the next without fixing the old bugs.

[FOOTPRINT]

Hi All,
Good to hear it has been tested locally, and yes I agree about MEADE software, It took them a Long Time to realize there was such a thing as the Southern Hemisphere also, the first lot of software I had in the Scope just dident work, I dont know if this latest version will do the Auto-Align when a scope is mounted on a Wedge (as mine is) lots of features do not apply to a Wedge mounted Scope, one thing I hate (Meade seem to go backwards with their new developments) is the Dec. Lock on the LX200GPS-10", its marginal at best, the old LX200 Classic had no problems in this direction, the PEC leaves a lot to be desired also, as far as I can see its only valid for the same time it was trained, and of course only for that portion of the driven gear it was trained on, their Optics are good though.

ive had my little say...............cheers......Jim

[Itchy]

Originally Posted by xstream

Now if Meade did bring out a 3 star alignment like Celestron, that would be a huge improvement and bonus.

Hi Xstream,

The later versions of the autostar firmware do have a three star alignment. It compensates for misalignments of the scope to the RA axis. It seems to work well.

Cheers