AUTOSTAR FEEDBACK Last updated: 30 April 2009

Welcome to the AutoStar feedback page. This page is intended to provide user comments on using the Meade Autostar #494, #495, #497, AutoStar III (for ETX-LS) cables, and the AutoStar updater software. See the AutoStar Info page for information from Meade and other users on the AutoStar, cables, and software. Send your comments and tips to etx@me.com for posting. Please use an appropriate Subject Line on your message per the Site Email Etiquette. Thanks. Remember, tips described on this site may invalidate the warranty on your telescope or accessories. Neither the submitter nor myself are responsible for any damage caused by using any contributed tips.

Subject:	Meade ETX-70 serial cable
Sent:	Thursday, April 30, 2009 04:17:41
From:	Anders Algotsson (anders.algotsson@vitax.se)
Found your site through Google ....

I wonder if you have the pinout for the serial cable for Meade ETX-70.
The cable doesn't seem to be available anywhere in my country (Sweden),
so I decided to make my own.

Best regards
Anders Algotsson

And an error on email delivery:

Your message cannot be delivered to the following recipients:

 Recipient address: anders.algotsson@vitax.se
 Reason: SMTP transmission failure has occurred
 Diagnostic code: smtp;554 Service unavailable. Message rejected as junk.

Subject:	etx-125 premier question
Sent:	Monday, April 27, 2009 19:17:32
From:	gklugie@verizon.net (gklugie@verizon.net)
I hope you don't mind direct email,  but I don't understand twitter and
it creps me out.

Can you please tell me if an etx-125 premier can use the same 497
autostar that is used on my etx 90?

Greg

Dallas, Texas

And:

Thank You

Clear Skies

Greg

And:

Thanks,
I read (and re-read) and recently upgraded to 43gg .... presumably a
premier edition scope will recognize this?!?!

Greg

Subject:	Autostar #497 HBX powers but does not respond
Sent:	Sunday, April 26, 2009 05:16:10
From:	PARRISH SKIES (PARRISHSKIES@TAMPABAY.RR.COM)
I use an LXD75 SN8. I was setup and ready to go, polar aligned, and with
Hearts of Space playing in the background. I initialized the HBX with
date, time, etc and attempted an easy align. The scope slewed to Sirius.
I centered with the arrow keys, but when I pressed enter, nothing
happened. I tried other keys and the only ones that worked were left and
right arrow keys.

I powered down. Manually parked scope and attempted again. But now all I
rec v is the "press mode to ... Message". Again, only the left and right
arrow keys worked. After a few deep breaths, I thought maybe my power
supply was low. I disconnected and recharged over night. Re-attempted to
power up with the same issue.

Other things I checked were: all connections secure in both ends of HBX,
power supply connection secure, mount clutches and setup okay.

The scope has been functioning great all season, so this issue has
caught me off guard. The display is not dimmed. And, I recv'd no error
messages. When slewing (before failure) there was no binding or adverse
noises noticed. I pamper my equipment and have not recollection of
damage to the HBX during storage or set up.

Where should I start?

Thanks for your valuable time. I truly appreciate it...again! 

Tom Connor 

http://parrishskies.googlepages.com/ 

And:

It has only been a few minutes since my initial email. I found my issue.
The (3) button was stuck. I had pressed it to change my slew speed. Last
night in the dark, I never would have noticed this. Once I 'unstuck'
everything is back to normal.
 
Once again, thank you for being there.
 
Tom Connor

And:

Thanks for the reply ...and the HOS recommendation. Galaxies is not in
my library, but I'll track it down. In regards to the keypad,  I simply
pressed to top of the rubbery button instead of the center. This caused
to button to pinch within the hard plastic controller.
 
Thanks again...and clear dark skies to you!
 
Tom

Subject:	worth updating ROM?
Sent:	Sunday, April 19, 2009 20:04:25
From:	alan palmer (whynot.pclinux@gmail.com)
Recently, I had pulled out my 90EC/497 after a hiatus of some four
years.  The installed version stands at 34E (3.4ec). I'm somewhat
limited in my ability to update the ROM at this time, as I  I have no
serial ports available to update with.  Is there anything essential in
the current 4.3eg that would warrant an upgrade from 3.4ec?  That is,
can I put off the update and expect things to be hunky-dory?

BTW, thank you for still being here; I have found a wealth of
information  over the years. You've done an amazing job!!!

Subject:	help
Sent:	Sunday, April 19, 2009 15:41:00
From:	Barbara Franklin (barbarafranklin144@gmail.com)
I am trying to update my autostar - I must confess I never have
I've got a regular etx-90, and can't seem to find the right update.
Can you send me the link and any advise to avoid the problems mentioned
on your site?
Thank you
Barbara

Subject:	Re: Autostar
Sent:	Friday, April 17, 2009 21:52:22
From:	Luis Villa (etx_125ec_from_arizona@q.com)
Follow up on tonight.

I did a complete reset, calibrated motors, trained, set percentages at
13 and 3 for dec....

Rubber banding is now negligible, backlash is almost non existent...

My setup procedures:
using a bubble level I level the base as well as possible, then site in
on Polaris, and offset about 1 degree towards Kocab as per instructions
from Clay Sherrod.  Then using a GEKO 100 GPS I set the time to the
second.  I am now as perfect as possible.  I then did a two star
alignment using Alkaid and Denebola. After the alignment I instructed
scope to GO-TO Saturn.  Using the MAX -18 I bought from scopetronics
years ago, Saturn was almost dead center... I centered then went to
M-81, M-105, M-96 and M-82, and all of them were in the same spot that
Saturn was in the eyepiece.  Minor centering required, very little.  I
think this is due to not actually being at the North Celestial Pole to
start with.

Rubber banding showed up!  I then re-trained drives first with a 26MM
eyepiece then the 18 and finally the 12.4. I adjusted my percentages to
the 13 and 3 settings.  Rubber banding is negligible and backlash
greatly reduced.  I might be doing some further refinement for tomorrow.

Tomorrow night I hope to be able to start taking pictures of Saturn.
Similar to the ones I took of Jupiter a few years ago, both with the LPI
and my cool pix 995...

Thanks for a great site!

I have learned tons from 'surfing' your site....

Oh yeah, a tip---  I use velcro both on the Autostar (small patch) and
on all three legs of the tripod, now when I need to set the autostar
down in the dark I just place it on one of the tripod legs.

And an update:

Sent:	Monday, April 20, 2009 09:25:54
From:	Luis Villa (etx_125ec_from_arizona@q.com)
Short follow up.

Saturn remained in the 18mm for no less than 30 minutes, very slight
adjustment required with the autostar, using the 2 setting. No
perceptible rubber banding or creep.  My autostar/scope is now ready for
the summer.  I have now,  thanks to your site, been able to rid my scope
of any rubber banding and am able to GO-TO whatever object I am looking
for.  The only reason it was only 30 minutes is that I then started
GO-TO'S to various Messier objects..

All I have left to do is now learn how to use the scope/autostar in
polar mode in order to take pictures of brighter Messier objects. I have
been using alt/az.

Luis

Subject:	Autostar
Sent:	Friday, April 17, 2009 12:52:42
From:	Luis Villa (etx_125ec_from_arizona@q.com)
I recently was able to dust off my ETX-125 and decided that it was time
for me to upgrade my version to 43g. Here are the results.

I hooked up my laptop to the autostar, downloaded the new version, saved
it on my computer and then started the upgrading process. On the
Autostar there is a message that you should NOT turn it off! Believe it,
I accidentally turned the power off about five minutes into the upload.
What I ended up with was garbage on the Autostar, I then remembered that
a "FLASH" procedure was mentioned on your site, I looked it up and it
works flawlessly! If it had not been for the site, I would probably have
had to buy another Autostar. Here is the link to the article, it could
save somebody's bacon, or at least some frustration.

http://www.weasner.com/etx/autostar/2009/bad_download.html

I will be doing a complete reset, enter new location data, retrain,
recalibrate and new percentages. My motivation for this is to eliminate
as much of the rubber banding that has plagued me since I bought the 125
back in 2002. The accuracy of my Go-to's has always been very good, the
only times they have been off is when I failed to align to the correct
star(s)! then they were way off, user error. I will be taking some
pictures with my trusty Coolpix 995, LPI, and my TOUCAM. So I need to
eliminate as much rubber banding as possible, I can live with it for
visual work, but when using the LPI or any eyepiece smaller than 15 MM
and a camera it is a pain in the aperture to have objects drift out of
the view of the camera. I have submitted numerous photos of various
objects, taken with the LPI and the 995. Patience is the keyword when
taking pictures with rubber banding plaguing the system, but it is
possible. Even with a 2X Barlow Lens. Difficult but possible.

There appears to be some conflicting information, part 2 "performance
enhancement-creating the perfect "GO TO" ETX or LX90" states on page 7
of 9 "the decision that changing the backlash percents should be made
PRIOR to ""Train Motors.""

Then this bit of advice is offered at

http://www.weasner.com/etx/autostar/as_info.html.

"Thus, IF you chose to reset from the defaulted "01%" in either altitude
or azimuth percentages as described above, it must be done AFTER all the
other three parameters are established. Thus, we now should consider
FOUR steps of post-initializing from an upload or reset: 1) RESET 2)
RE-CALIBRATE 3) RE-TRAIN 4) RE-SET PERCENTAGES (only if necessary).
Setting the percentages BEFORE calibration and training WILL result in
rubberbanding! Always establish your percentages after you have
communicated the first three parameters to the Autostar and ETX!

Which is correct? Changing percentages BEFORE training or AFTER?

I did a quick reset, and followed procedures with percentage PRIOR to
train and this resulted in rubber banding. Tonight I will be doing the
reset again and follow procedures with setting percentages AFTER train
motors.

I will follow up this and let you know what I have experienced.

As always if it weren't for your site, I would not know how to address
these issues. Thanks for keeping this site up and running for as long as
you have, and welcome to Arizona!

I tried before, and got rubber banding, and tonight I will try AFTER.

Subject:	lost software from meade etx125 pe handset
Sent:	Friday, April 17, 2009 04:38:16
From:	kudziam@aol.com (kudziam@aol.com)
I have got a problem and I would like you to tell me if there is
anything that I could do with it, please.

Whilst upgrading my software from autostar software I experienced a
power cut and lost the internet connection so now it seems that I have
lost all the software in my handset. The screen is blank and the scope
is not responding. Do you know any website that I could download the
software from?

Is there anything that I could do?

Kind regards

Mirek

Subject:	re: etx125
Sent:	Tuesday, April 14, 2009 21:13:22
From:	richard seymour (rseymour@wolfenet.com)
When you wrote:
"Have tried the safe load procedure but still dead."
do you mean that:
(a) it didn't even display "Downloading, do not turn off",
or
(b) that it -did- display that message (thus "i'm not dead yet!"),
but that the attempt to download -after- that appeared failed?


If the former, than -carefully- check that the power supply is
adequate.

If the latter, have you tried StarPatch (as Mike suggested)?

good luck
--dick

Subject:	ETX90 PE  Dec & RA problem
Sent:	Sunday, April 12, 2009 11:28:50
From:	ALLEN (mirrorstoo@yahoo.com)
I've been trying to correct a problem without success. When I move the
scope in slow speeds (5 or less), in both dec & ra, there is a huge
amount of drawback (pullback? not sure what you call it). This makes it
difficult to center an object. I've done all the calibrations, sensors,
motors & training. I've removed the OTA & checked the dec gears to see
if anything is loose. I've also checked the RA gears without success. Do
you have any suggestions.

Your help would be appreciated. Thanks!
Allen

And:

Thanks for your quick answer. I will read and try it. Hopefully it will
work. I'm excited.
Thanks again. Allen

And:

I started checking things out. It seems in AZ training the left slew
returns to target w/horizontal crosshairs below target. On right slew
target is above the horizontal crosshairs. On Dec training, the up slew
returns target to right of vertical crosshairs, down slew brings it to
the left. I've tried training a few times but this hasn't changed. Prior
to training, last night I did a reset, calibrated motors & sensors as
best I can. I also noticed that the default setting for tragets is
terrestrial (when the scope is turned off then on). Can I set the
default for astronomical. My Meade software is 44E. Thanks for whatever
help you can offer. Allen

And:

My Autostar ver. is: 44Ea. The>is on terrestrial. When I switch to
>astrological and press enter, it stays until it is turned off. When
it's turned on again the default is >terrestrial again.

And:

I know 4.3Eg is the latest. It was installed when I received this ETX 90
PE as a replacment for 1 that was defective. I was concerned about
changing to 4.3Eg but will do it now.

And:

I upgraded the software and the default is still >terrestrial. Any
suggestions how to make it >astronomical? I will re-calibrate & re-train
tomorrow to see if it makes a difference with the rubberband effect. So
far, whatever I tried hasn't helped. Per Dr. Clay's advise, I did change
(b/4 changing the software) change the setting for DEC % to 15 & the RA
% to 25. That didn't seem to help much.Thanks! Allen

Subject:	etx125
Sent:	Sunday, April 12, 2009 06:39:41
From:	DAVID KEIL (david.keil1@btinternet.com)
have tried to upgrade my autostar but assume I did something wrong as
now my autostar appears not to be working. Cables appear fine, only
response is an occasional quiet clicking from it. Any ideas or do I need
to purchase new one?
 
Many thanks DWK

And:

Have tried the safe load procedure but still dead. Also not able to
recognise autostar from my pc. Looks like a new one must be purchased!

Subject:	autostar 494 question
Sent:	Saturday, April 11, 2009 06:16:15
From:	Andrew Rubey (andrew_rubey@earthlink.net)
Thanks for providing and maintaining your ETX website, it has answered
many questions for me in the past.

I'm having issues with my #494 autostar controller (being used with an
etx70).  It is returning "proc trap 2" errors when selecting objects or
tours from its catalogue.  I have tried reseting the controller but
haven't seen any improvement.

From the information I've found it seems the only solution is to
purchase the Meade 506 cables, and a usb adapter (then I have to deal
with the issue that all my computers are MACs).  Do you know of any
other options or have suggestions for possible solutions?  I'm very
hesitant to invest in the cables and adaptor right now.  Do you know if
Meade still offers to service these units?

thanks much
Andy Rubey

And:

Thank you, Mike.  I'll look into those options!

Subject:	Improving Alignment
Sent:	Monday, April 6, 2009 13:48:34
From:	John Batiste
I have an ETX 125PE, which works just fine.  My question may be more
phylosophical than practical, but here goes.

During alignment, training the drives, aligning the SmartFinder, and
training the sensors it is necessary to "center the object".

Would it be benificial to obtain an eyepiece with cros hairs to achieve
this?

My current results seem to be good, but could they be better with a more
accurate centering?
 
John

And:

Thank you!
 
The "faint DSO" target was the basis of my question.  It has been over
40 years since I had firsthand experience with astronomy (worked at the
U. of Wisconsin Space Astronomy lab as a student).  I am sure I will
have further questions as the months go by.

I have used the higher power eyepiece technique;  somewhat intuitive --
higher mag, smaller field of view, etc.

Cross hairs are invaluable when hunting with a rifle, and those targets
are one heck of a lot closer.

Can you recommend any of the Meade illuminated reticles?

By the way, I have certainly enjoyed reading your postings.
 
Clear skies,
  
John

Subject:	Using a PC to control the ETX-90 EC, and Updating Autostar
Sent:	Monday, April 6, 2009 12:36:22
From:	Matthew Checketts (CHE05012@BYUI.EDU)
Thank you for your great website.  I have looked to it for advice in the
past and have always found it useful.  I have a couple of questions for
you.

First:  I have not updated my Autostar software since 2005 or early 2006
since I was away at college, but have recently set up my telescope and
thought maybe I should update the software.  Problem is, I have only
done that once in the past and I don't remember very well how; I don't
have an rs-232 connection on my laptop computer, although I do have a
modem and an Ethernet port.  Additionally, in searching through your
site I saw a recent warning regarding updating the #497 Autostar which
was concerning.

Second: How can I control my ETX with a laptop?  Is there a way that I
can connect my laptop to the telescope without an rs-232 connector, and
without ordering a USB to serial part?  I am really quite unfamiliar
with this whole concept; can I use the Autostar Suite software to
control the telescope? I look forward to receiving your thoughts and
suggestions.  Thanks again for everything.

Third: I found generic ac adapters on Ebay that supposedly will work
like the #541 ac adapter.  Will they really work and is there any risk
involved with buying a non Meade product like that?

Matt Checketts

Subject:	Autostar in german, single language ROM
Sent:	Thursday, April 2, 2009 22:36:53
From:	Leonardo Pignataro (leopignataro@gmail.com)
I have an ETX-70AT telescope, and its Autostar is in german. I have read
your FAQ "My AutoStar is displaying a foreign language. How do I change
it?", and followed the steps, resetting the Autostar. However, after the
reset, no language prompt came up. I can only assume that multiple
languages are not featured in my Autostar.

Do you know if there's any other way I can change the language to
english? Perhaps with a firmware update of some sort?

Thank you very much for your time.

-- 
Leonardo Pignataro

And:

Thank you very much for the information, Mike.

BTW (since you are a guy who gathers tips about this sort of thing), one
thing that helps me to get by with my autostar in german is to have the
menu map in english printed out, which is featured in the telescope's
user manual. Most of the items are listed in the menu map in the exact
order that they appear in the autostar, so it's possible to know where
you're at, even if you don't understand what's written.

Well, thanks again for your help.

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