GoTo Hell

Colin Dawson wrote:
Lets's see if I can help out a little. See below....


Does anyone know of any good practical guide or resource regarding the use
of Meade's Auto Star database when out in the field?


Yep, use a laptop, connect a planetarium program to the autostar via the
RS-232 cable. I use Skymap pro for this and never have any problems
finding the things that I'm looking for. I found that the Autostar menus
a little to clunky for all but the simplest of field use. It's almost
like the Autostar software was not designed by someone who actually wants to
use the product. Since, I could say to use a laptop and connect for all
the rest of the answers I won't mention is again in this post.


Here's a few reasons for my frustration:

A star's Flamsteed number is a popular identifier, yet I don't seem to be
able to dial that in anywhere.


I don't that you can look up that number, the only number that comes to mind
is the SAO number of a star. I think there are a couple of other ways to
look up, but they don't really help much either.


Has anyone ever tried scrolling through the lists of variable stars? Try
scrolling to RR Aquilae - the blessed thing will have faded to minimum by
the time you get there!


Yep, I've tried, and ended up needed to repair my autostar buttongs (TV
Remote control repair kits work well) It's kind of shoddy that you need to
scroll though huges lists of 10,000 objects!


Is it possible to bookmark an object? Or add it to a Tour on-the-fly?


Ah, now, the quick answer to this is NO. The autostar doesn't contain any
bookmarking facilities, which is a shame, and you can't modify a tour on the
fly. However, planning your nights activities is an essential part to
getting the most out of a nights session. You could always write your own
tour which contains the objectst that you're looking to see. Again, using
the RS-232 cable to download the tour into your autostar before the
observing begins. In this instance, I think that it you that needs to
change not the Autostar, Althought the book marking would be a nice
feature.


Any thoughts / opinions / advice welcomed.


Use a laptop to provide you with a connection to the autostar. (So, I lied
earlier) It really does make things alot better, simpler and quicker to
use. Plan your observing better before you set out. Maybe write a Guided
tour and download it to your autostar, or at least lookup something that you
can find quickly in the Autostar, like the SAO number. That way you can
avoid needing to spend half the night pressing the scroll buttons instead of
observing.

Hope this helps a little.

Regards

Colin Dawson
www.cjdawson.com


Thanks Colin for your detailed and very helpful reply. I guess it's as I
suspected - a laptop is the answer. I've been using skymap myself for a
number of years on the home PC, but never had chance to couple it to the
telescope outdoors yet. It occurred to me whilst using my mobile phone
the other day that the addition of letters on the number keys of the
Autostar could make the interface more friendly. After all, it took me
seconds to type in "RR Aur" on my mobile. Does Meade have a suggestion
box? !
Thanks again,
Dave Adcock.