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rmollise
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 07/06/07
Posts: 1653
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Quote:
Ok, it is here. The fit and finish looked fine, the setting circles looked attached OK and the dust cover unscrewed off without any problems.
I powered it up, and yes, the motors are noisy compared to those on my Sirius. I'm indoors because of course it is raining outside, so I thought I'd try to alignment procedure to get used to the menu and make sure the motors work correctly. I entered my Zip code and said yes to daylight savings time. I went ahead an let it go through its level and north exercise. I made sure that the scope was in the home position for auto align and let it go. After some back and forth, it actually slewed to the north and then slewed to the bright star. Of course I'm indoors so I noted the position the scope was pointing and hit the ? key. It identified the first star as Sirius, which is below the horizon right now. Not sure if the indoor alignment confused it, but it should at least know the date, no?
No. 
You have to initially enter date and time and timezone. Thereafter the battery backup in the LNT will keep track of it.
Some other tips:
Use "city," not "Zip," the ETX seems to like that better for some reason.
Drive training is critical.
If you've got one, use a crosshair reticle to center alignment stars.
You may want to do what I did, go into the HC and turn OFF "bright star." If'n you do that, the HC will display the name of the alignment star it is slewing to.
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Uncle Rod
Watch for Rod's New Book:
Choosing and Using a New CAT--coming in December!
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FLNightSky
professor emeritus
Reged: 03/13/06
Posts: 616
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Quote:
No.
You have to initially enter date and time and timezone. Thereafter the battery backup in the LNT will keep track of it.
The DVD has a bonus feature which is called "Don't I have to set the time and date?" and the Meade guy says no, you don't have to. I'll work on that tonight, and maybe go out and do the train the drives while it is still light. May not get any under the stars weather though. But then again, this is why I got it, to be able to take it out at a moment's notice if the weather clears.
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rmollise
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 07/06/07
Posts: 1653
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Quote:
The DVD has a bonus feature which is called "Don't I have to set the time and date?" and the Meade guy says no, you don't have to. I'll work on that tonight, and maybe go out and do the train the drives while it is still light. May not get any under the stars weather though. But then again, this is why I got it, to be able to take it out at a moment's notice if the weather clears.
My advice? Do youself a favor and enter your date, time, timezone and city and do the easy alignment. That is the easiest way to get going.
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Uncle Rod
Watch for Rod's New Book:
Choosing and Using a New CAT--coming in December!
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FLNightSky
professor emeritus
Reged: 03/13/06
Posts: 616
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I just entered the time and date info along with the City (rather than the Zip code). If the weather holds enough I'll go ahead and train the drives too.
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jgraham
Postmaster
Reged: 12/02/04
Posts: 5370
Loc: Dayton, Ohio
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If I recall right the time and date are set at the factory and corrected for the time zone and daylight saving time during setup. When mine arrived is was only a couple of minutes off. I've since bought the atomic clock update module from OPT, which is a cute little device that seems to work like a charm. I plug it in about once a week to reset the clock (I have no idea if it needs it that often). I've used the zip code on all of my Autostar #497's and it seems to work okay, though the pointing accuracy during setup is off a bit (once it's calibrated it works fine). Just for yucks I'll try the city entry and see what happens. Thanks for the tip on the brightest star setting, I'll have to ty that as well.
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-John
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Homebuilt scopes from 4.25-16.5"
Meade LXD75-N6/SN6/SC8, DSX-90, ETX-60BB, ETX-125PE, DS-2130
Orion StarBlast, BinoViewers, Coronado PST
Rebel XT/XTi, DSI Pro (I & II), DSI, LPI, Electronic Eyepiece, Phillips SPC900NC
Tasco 60mm Refractors
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FLNightSky
professor emeritus
Reged: 03/13/06
Posts: 616
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The sky is still obscured, but after training the drives and resetting the time and date (and selecting my location by name rather than zip) the Easy Align at least points in the correct direction for the 2 alignment stars, and the goto's go to the correct general vicinity, at least as best as I can tell while indoors. This is my first Alt-Az mount so if I understand the theory correctly that means that the mount will have to continously move in both directions to keep an object centered, right? So there is more "work" for the motors to do compared to a GEM?
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jgraham
Postmaster
Reged: 12/02/04
Posts: 5370
Loc: Dayton, Ohio
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Yep, it's a fairly fancy dance that the ETX (and other driven alt/az mounts) do quite well. If you ever mount your ETX in polar mode it behaves like any other equatorial mount and drives in R.A. only. I've done that with my ETX-60BB, but not with my 125 yet.
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-John
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Homebuilt scopes from 4.25-16.5"
Meade LXD75-N6/SN6/SC8, DSX-90, ETX-60BB, ETX-125PE, DS-2130
Orion StarBlast, BinoViewers, Coronado PST
Rebel XT/XTi, DSI Pro (I & II), DSI, LPI, Electronic Eyepiece, Phillips SPC900NC
Tasco 60mm Refractors
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Kolenka
professor emeritus
Reged: 06/01/08
Posts: 600
Loc: Seattle Area, WA, USA
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I've run my ETX 125 in polar mode. It is nice in that the tracking does seem to be more stable, but I haven't quite gotten the kinks out of aligning and tracking in polar mode. My alignments are not nearly as good as the auto-align in alt-az mode, and I think I need to figure out how the PEC works (the tracking seems a little fast).
Beyond that, polar mode is quite useful.
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Meade 10" LX200R
Orion 80ED
Nagler 7T6, 9T6, 13T6, 17T4, 26T5
Canon XSi (Modded), TIS DMK 31AF03
Northwest Astro Photoblog
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rmollise
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 07/06/07
Posts: 1653
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Quote:
If I recall right the time and date are set at the factory
Nope. You'll need to set time, time zone and DST status unless you just get lucky and whatever's in there conincides with your proper settings...
I've thought about the "radio" module a time or too, but penny pinchin' ol Rod always comes to the conclusion, "why bother?" My alignments are good, even if the clock might be a minute off.
--------------------
Uncle Rod
Watch for Rod's New Book:
Choosing and Using a New CAT--coming in December!
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