the next generation in GoTo

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

It used to be that to align a Goto-say for an ETX you had to select two satrs, then centre them in your eyepiece

For Celestron's AS series GoTO you have to find three stars two on the east and one on the West (or vice versa)

then along came Celestrons sky align where you could pick any three objects in the sky-including the moon or planets and the software would do the aligning for you..dont have to know the names of the objects even

now in the latest (January 2006) issue of Astromomy, there is an ad for Meade's latest take on alignment routines...turn on the scope, it finds two stars on its own and all you do is centre them and you are aligned..there is a downloadable upgrade which may be of interest to LX 200 folks

http://www.meade.com/autoalign/index.html

what next..will it tell you when the coffee is ready as well

[atalas]

Black no sugar please Narayan !

[Stu]

And soon they will have a built in CCD camera and guider so it will even center the Star by it's self.

And take photo's.

And have a 12V connection for a coffie maker....

...problem is you will have to register your scope with Microsoft within 30 days of first using it, or it will self destruct.

...just don't forget those scope security updates!!!

[davidpretorius]

you are not silly there stu, imagine microsoft attention to detail driving our scopes and cars?????

of course the end user agreement will mean it is all your fault when the software driven motors go too fast and smash your $40,000 telescope to the ground

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

And the model after that will come with an in-built robot that will do the observing for you, so you can just stay inside on the couch & watch TV while the scope is doing all your amateur astronomy for you.

[seeker372011 (Narayan)]

Originally Posted by janoskiss

And the model after that will come with an in-built robot that will do the observing for you, so you can just stay inside on the couch & watch TV while the scope is doing all your amateur astronomy for you.

[acropolite (Phil)]

Yeah wonderful alright, points to a bright star (didn't on mine) doesn't announce which one, (so you can't even point to the one it wants) and basically forced me to manually 2 star align in the effort I managed to break the red dot finder lens.

[Striker (Tony)]

But thats what mine does now...except my robot takes my photo's for me aswell....when it's finished it let's me know.

Then I have to pain stacking go outside of all things and have a look at the images....should set up some kind of remote so the images go directly to my PC inside.

[Stu]

Originally Posted by Striker

....should set up some kind of remote so the images go directly to my PC inside.

Yeh it's called a USB cable extension box.

Hey at least us amateur astronomers will be the first to know when the U.S. are going to bomb us. Our GPS goto scopes will start pointing in the wrong direction when they change the GPS network to confuse us.
Hang on, my scope already does that now...

In all seriousness, I wonder how long the GPS standard will be around for. If they changed the standard all our scopes would be useless basically overnight, all the dob owners would just laugh.

I'm sure there would be a service pack two update though.

[janoskiss (Steve H)]

Originally Posted by Stu

... all our scopes would be useless basically overnight, all the dob owners would just laugh.

Don't worry, Stu, we do that already. It's every Dob owner's duty to make fun of and laugh at Goto-ers.

[Stu]

Originally Posted by janoskiss

Don't worry, Stu, we do that already. It's every Dob owner's duty to make fun of and laugh at Goto-ers.

I know.

But I'd rather be laughed at than frustrated. I am hopeless at pushing dobs back to the target once they've drifted off. I'm always a bit embarrassed to hand back peoples dobs after I've looked through them because they are nowhere near the target anymore.

I'll take a scope that makes my coffie any day.