Meade Solar Tracking.

[Guy Wells]

Hi. I have a Meade LT6. There is no solar tracking mode. Have any Meade owners got around this obstacle?

[Fish]

I have a LXD75 mount and use it connected to stellarium to track the sun.

[Guy Wells]

I don't have the cable yet

[ronin]

The manual says there is Sidereal, Lunar and Custom.

Strange there is no solar but I suppose the work round is to define it as a custom rate.

I have no idea what it is however, and if visual I would have siad just use sidereal and make adjustments as necessary.

[Peter Drew]

I don't think there is enough difference between solar and sidereal rates for it to be an issue. 

[ronin]

I don't think there is enough difference between solar and sidereal rates for it to be an issue. 

I was going to say that but as some scopes have a specific "Solar" it often then ends up with a minor difference of opinion.

I would not bother and simply do as Peter says and use the "normal", especially if it is for visual. You just recentre it every so often. Also as you cannot perform an accurate alignment for tracking (no stars to align from during the day) then the tracking errors will most likely be greater then the rate error.

[Steve Ward]

The HEQ5Pro I use has 'Solar' tracking and keeps the Sun centred for hours , running at 'Sidereal' rate the disc soon needs re-centering.

My imaging during the winter is done with an EQ3-2 atop a 14' pier with only 'sidereal' tracking and it's a pain having to adjust frequently to centre ... 

Accurate alignment is possible by drift-aligning using a sunspot instead of a star ... 

[Peter Drew]

That's interesting Steve. I use a 120mm F10 scope for Ha solar viewing, it's on a Vixen GP Gem roughly (as in Polaris centred in polefiinder) polar aligned yet presumably tracking at sidereal rate, visually, the Sun stays in the FOV for at least an hour.  

[Guy Wells]

It's been a while. Here is how it's done: Turn scope on. Level. Point north. Let it do a two star alignment (when it asks if the star is centred, just tell it yes) Alighnment complete.

Of course, it does not know where anything is, but it is still tracking correctly.

[Davey-T]

I have LX200  and you can enter Sun co-ords in the handset as an asteroid, can PM you the settings if the handset is the same.

Not included by Meade on health and safety grounds to stop you blinding yourself and suing them 

Dave

[Guy Wells]

Thanks. Employing my own method, stated above, works perfectly. Thanks though.