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Control
Meade ETX Autostar from
Palm Hand Held Organizer
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Control
Your Meade telescope with #/495 or #497 AutoStar
From your Palm
Hand Held Organizer
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| Yes,
point your stylus on the Palm organizer screen and control
the telescope. Point to a Planet, a star, a
galaxy... on your Palm hand held screen and command
the telescope to point to wherever you have selected.
This is a cable set and software combo that allows you to
control your Meade telescope with Meade 497 Autostar from
your Palm organizer. The software sends commands to
the Meade #495 or #497Autostar to control the telescope.
Compatibility
- Runs on PalmOS 2.0 or
higher.
- Uses gray shades on
PalmOS 3.0 or higher.
- Uses colors on color
devices.
You
need a serial hot sync cable for your Palm PDA.
Different Palm PDA model may need a different serial hot
sync cable. This cable is available on ebay for
about $10-$15.00 depending on model. This Palm/Autostar
cable & adapter set connects the Autostar to the Palm
device in the cradle OR with a Palm serial hot sync cable.
The Palm PDA, cradle or Palm serial cable is not
included.
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This
cable/software set works with any telescope with Meade
#497 Autostar ( firmware version 22Et or above)
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#497
Autostar controlled
Meade ETX series telescopes
- Meade ETX-90EC
- Meade ETX-125EC
- Meade LX-90
- Meade ETX-60AT
- Meade ETX-70AT
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#497
controlled
Meade Digital Series Telescope
Electronic Controlled
- Meade DS-60EC
- Meade DS-70EC
- Meade DS-80EC
- Meade DS-90EC
- Meade DS-114EC
- Meade DS-127EC
- Polaris DS-60EC
- Polaris DS-114EC
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This cable
set and software is custom made for the Palm Organizer
and Meade Autostar
This is NOT compatible with Meade 505
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The
Field Guide for Meade ETX-Autostar
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The
Step-by-Step guide book for the ETX-Autostar Observation
System
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Are
you frustrated that you ETX-Autostar is NOT doing what
you want?
Is your GOTO
accurate?
Don't sell you Telescope out of frustration!
This is
the Step-by-step book that guides you through all the
setup, alignment to achieve precision GOTO night after
night without frustration. All the little tricks
that makes setting up, aligning and using your
ETX-Autostar observing system easy. Over
50 information packed pages with many illustration
and photographs. A collections of many hours of
time and frustration saving experience.
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This
Field Guide is for owners of all Autostar
Controlled Telescopes |
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Autostar controlled
Meade ETX series telescopes
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Autostar
controlled
Meade Digital Series
Telescope
Electronic Controlled
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- Meade ETX-90EC
- Meade ETX-125EC
- Meade LX-90
- Meade ETX-60AT
- Meade ETX-70AT
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- Meade DS-60EC
- Meade DS-70EC
- Meade DS-80EC
- Meade DS-90EC
- Meade DS-114EC
- Meade DS-127EC
- Polaris DS-60EC
- Polaris DS-114EC
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The ETX-Autostar observation system |
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The
ETX-Autostar observation system consists of the
ETX telescope, the Autostar and the Tripod. How you set up these three components would determine how
precise and consistent is your observation.
You need to look at the ETX telescope,
Autostar and the tripod as an integrated system.
There is no overall instruction for the beginner.
There is a manual for the telescope on how
to use the telescope.
There is also the very brief manual on how
to setup the Autostar.
There may be a manual for the tripod.
Each part of the observation system
(telescope, Autostar and tripod) comes with its
instruction with very little overall
consideration.
It is important the system work with each
other. Worst
of all, the manual assumes that the beginner user
know how the entire system should work
together.
This guide book take the entire ETX-Autostar
observation system as a whole and guide you
though step-by-step process to integrate your
telescope, Autostar and tripod in to one
observation system. You will achieve precise GOTO night after night after night without
frustration.
There will
be no consistency without precision steps.
A small error here, a little off there, and
these little imprecision add up to big error. If
setup properly, the ETX/Autostar telescope, is
amazingly precise even at such a low cost
This guide book will show you all the
precision steps require for perfect results.
This field
guide is designed to show all the essentials on
how to setup and align the Meade ETX/Autostar Observation
system with precision without going into a lot of boring theory. This is a practical guide that if you follow the instruction,
you will get the desired result. |
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This
is how good you GOTO can be:
By
following the instruction in this guide book, you can
expect ALL target stars will appear in the viewfinder, better than 80% of GOTO targets will appear (not
necessarily centered) in the 26mm eyepiece of the
ETX-90EC. You may
not need to use your viewfinder after followin my
method. If you follow the
instruction here, you will get good GOTO consistently,
night after night of comfortable star glazing without
frustration. The instructions here will show you
the step-by-step process how to achieve precision
results.
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Total
setup and alignment time for perfect GOTO: 10 minutes!
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| Topics |
Step-by-step
and precision instruction for: |
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What
is In
the Guide Book: |
| The
System |
The
ETX-Autostar System: the
telescope, Autostar and tripod
How the system must work as a
whole. |
| Telescope
setup |
Precision
viewfinder alignment
Precision DEC Dial setting.
Precision telescope leveling for Polar and Alt/Az
Home position.
Precision Home positions (Polar & Alt/Az) |
| Autostar |
Precision
Autostar setup
Get exact Latitude and
Longitude of your address without a GPS unit
Precision time from an atomic clock and precision
to hundredth of a second.
Fine tune Autostar with your telescope
- Correct
and precision method to Train Drive
- Eliminates
drive lack time (telescope does not move
immediately after you push the button)
- Eliminates
jerky telescope movements
- Eliminates and
avoid motor failure messages
Autostar
problem troubleshooting |
| Tripod |
Precision
Leveling
Precision setting of Latitude |
| North |
What
is North? Which North to use?
Magnetic North and Magnetic declination
compensation
Geographic North
North Celestial Pole
How to find the EXACT True North Celestial Pole,
precision method |
North
alignment
Do you know you must align North before a Star
alignment? |
How
to use compass for north alignment and magnetic
declination
How to align with the Pole star.
How
to align to the North Celestial Pole precisely for
perfect GOTO and tracking
Align only once for permanent type telescope pier
or stand. |
| Star
Alignment |
Star
alignment Overview and Essentials
Pre-alignment
check list
Precision star alignment method
Star Alignment troubleshooting |
| Eyepieces |
Eyepiece
focal length, magnification, field of view
reference table |
| Computer
Controlled Astronomy |
GOTO
from the Computer Screen
Control the telescope from your compute, point the
telescope to a star with your mouse. |
| Computer
Software to control your telescope. |
Learn
Astronomy the easy way.
What can be easier than looking at the computer
screen and compare the screen with the sky.
Point and Click the telescope to the star of you
choice right on the computer screen. Want to see all the stars of a
constellation? Just point and click on each
star of the constellation from you computer
screen. There is no need to find them
yourself in the sky.
Hold down the left mouse button and drag, the
sky rotates with your mouse movement! Your browse the
entire sky with you mouse.
Spin the mouse wheel and you zoom in
on the
target.
Tips on setting up your
Autostar.
Find the EXACT longitude and latitude of your location.
Connect and test the connection of you telescope with the
Autostar.
Quick setup of the planetarium/telescope control software.
A simplified user manual/quick tip for immediate use of the
telescope control software. |
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Planetarium
and Telescope control Software (Included)
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Yes, point your mouse
on the computer screen and control the telescope. Point to a Planet, a star, a galaxy... on your computer
screen and command the telescope to point to wherever
you have selected. This is a cable set and
software combo that allows you to control your Meade
telescope with Meade 497 Autostar from your computer.
The
software sends commands to the Meade #495 or #497Autostar to control the
telescope.
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It is very simple and fun,
these are the steps:
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- Install the planetarium software in
your computer.
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Configure the software similar
to the way you configure the Autostar by
entering the location (Longitude and Latitude)
and time zone. The instruction to find
you EXACT Longitude and Latitude of you
address is included also. Yes, that is it. You
can custom configure the software if you want
but you can use it with just this simple
setup.
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- Connect the Autostar to you computer with
the cable set, a
notebook computer if you want to be really
portable outdoor.
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- You align you telescope the same way using
the Autostar.
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- Activate the connection between the
telescope and computer and you are ready to
have fun.
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Point,
Click and make the Telescope Points
You simple select any object (star, planet,
constellation) on the computer screen, click a
button , and the telescope start
"slewing" (telescope movement is call
slewing). The telescope then point to the
selected object and stop.
You wonder where the star, planet or
constellation is in the sky? You can use the Find
function to find and point your telescope.
You may type in the name of the object or select
from the drop down menu if you don't even know the
correct spelling.
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NO
MORE DOWNLOADING! SOFTWARE and GUIDEBOOK NOW ON CD
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You are purchasing one Autostar-PDA cable,
and the Field Guidebook for ETX-Autostar in Acrobat PDF format
on CD only. NO printed
material is sold. The software are available on CD to you at no charge, FREE, with the purchase of the
cable sets and the Guidebook. This planetarium
and telescope control software is a freeware. This a
full version, un-crippled freeware with no trial or expiration
period. NO upgrade is needed. The author Franck
RICHARD welcomes donation as you wish. However a donation
is neither required or demanded to use this software. The
seller has written permission from the author Franck
RICHARD to copy and distribute this freeware. The instruction
included gives you all the
information needed to install, setup and
quick start instruction for the software. The seller
reserve all copyright to the ETX-Autostar Field Guidebook. Buyer
is not allow to
re-sell or transfer the ETX-Autostar Field Guidebook for any reason. The cable set include a custom configured
DB-9 to RJ-11 adapter and cable. The color of the
adapter and cable delivered may be different from the
photo.
Disclaimer
The name "Meade", "Meade logo", "ETX",
"Autostar" are trademarks of Meade Instrument
Corporation. Seller has no association with Meade
Instrument Corporation. This product is neither sponsored
nor authorized by Meade Instrument Corporation. Reference herein
to any specific commercial products, process, or service by
trade name, trade mark, manufacturer or otherwise, is not an
endorsement or recommendation.
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