Starry Night Pro question again!!

[chrissara]

Sorry to trouble you all again, but you may see a few posts down my question on the RS-232 and Starry Night Pro. I have a Meade ETX-125EC telescope. Simple question - it has no RS-232 socket that I see! (unless it is hidden). It does have though that telephone type connection. According to Starry Night Pro this telescope is compatible. How then do I get it to do the tracking? Is there another cable I need?

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Chrissara

Do you have a cable to connect your laptop to the ETX for Sutosuite updates? If it's anything like the LX200 then you use the same port. Sorry not much help. Have you tried Weasner's Mighty ETX site. http://www.weasner.com/etx/menu.html It's probably the paramount ETX site on the net.

[Dennis]

Chris

My GoTo 'scopes (Vixen & Takahashi) have an RJ12 and Mini-DIN connector on the telescope hand control unit. The RS232 connector is on my Notebook computer.

Therefore, for the Vixen, I have a cable thus:
Computer: RS232 9 Pin D connector <----> ‘Scope: RJ12 telephone type connector.

And, for the Takahashi, I have a cable thus:
Computer: RS232 9 Pin D connector <----> ‘Scope: Mini-DIN type connector.

Therefore, I would assume that the Meade has some kind of modular telephone style connector and not a DB-9 RS232 connector? This means you would require a cable thus:
Computer: RS232 9 Pin D connector <----> ETX ‘Scope: Meade specific Modular telephone type connector.

All the above assume that your computer has a native 9 Pin RS232 connector. Some modern ones do not have this and so you would require a USB to RS232 adapter and beware, not all telescopes like these adapters; some work, others do not.

Cheers

Dennis