Hello from Liverpool

[Mulberry]

Hello everyone from a new member in Liverpool, well Birkenhead to be precise (possibly the worst place in England for astronomy thanks to the clouds that roll in from the Irish sea. I've been attempting to gaze upwards for about 14 months now and, despite frustrations through being sold faulty equipment several times, I am completely hooked. I use a Meade ETX105 (possibly with a still faulty autostar!). Apart from generally chatting to what sounds a very interesting and supportive gathering of folks on here, I would be very interested to know of anyone in the area.

I look forward to speaking to you all!!

[daz]

Hi There Mulberry

Welcome along

There are one or two others with your scope, or other ETX models that will no doubt offer sage advice on your Autostar.

Feel free to ask any questions and we'll do our best to clear those skies for you!!!

[Jamie]

Hi Mulberry welcome to Stargazers.

[lunator]

Welcome Mulberry

What's the prob with the ETX?

I have an ETX70 that is my widefield scope it works fine as long as I set it up right but it can be a bit tempermental.

Cheers

Ian

[tom.yates]

HI, From cloudy Wigan down the road from you i suppose anyway welcome enjoy the forum.

Tom.

[Mulberry]

Thank you all for your welcomes so far -- what quick responses!

Ian I would be interested to know how your scope in temperamental. I have been able to use mine so infrequently it has been hard to work out exactly what the fault is. I have had a couple of 'proc trap 2' errors which seem to be bad news according to Mike Weasner's website and have had a motor error (which may simply have been caused by a dodgy connection to my power pack). Successful alignment is also a rarity -- although this may be due to poor location/visibility. However, certain faults are A) it spouts code sometimes rather than giving information on an object -- for example it says something like "tebe7=9kdnc dh87yhd" and, perhaps more seriously, it has started to really jolt every ten seconds or so when it is tracking an object. Any thoughts would be much appreciated!

[Mulberry]

Hi telescope4u. No, I haven't uypdated the controller as i've been advised against this. Wouldn't it invalidate the warrenty apart from anything else? My dealer told me that this is where most of the problems start. Do you think it's a good idea?

[GazOC]

Hi Mulberry,

Welcome to the forum, if the scope is faulty and under guarantee can't you take it back?

Gaz

[The Warthog]

Hi, hope it's a Mulberry day for you! It's a great hobby, and this is a great place to come and talk about it. Welcome aboard!

[Mulberry]

I've had it for about ten months (it was a replacement for a faulty one I got a year ago) I feel I should rule out all possibilities before returning it (I have already had to return it once and my dealer is quite a way from home). Maybe I should try the updates -- it sounds as though you have had success with this telescope4u? Does anyone else have exp. of doing meade updates? I have a couple of months before the guarantee runs out but it is so rare that I can test it thanks to the clouds!!

[GazOC]

I've updated a handset successfully but only once, it was pretty straight forward IIRC.

[Astroman]

Gotta love Meade....

[Mulberry]

hmmm, do I detect a bit of irony there Astroman?

[GazOC]

"a bit"????

[Mulberry]

i'd be interested in your thoughts. Surely the're good as a first scope? I appreciate they must be fairly mass produced though. when things have worked well with it i have seem some amazing things....

[GazOC]

The ETX series have a reputation as great starter scopes, but if the handset/motors arn't working properly then you won't be getting full value out of it.

[Mulberry]

I'm very pleased with mine, even though it might still need some sorting!

[GazOC]

Do you know anyone with a handset you can test (guess you've thought of that, worth a mention though)?

[Mulberry]

I don't actually -- I have been trying to track down some other gazers in the area but with no luck so far...

[Astroman]

snip...if the handset/motors arn't working properly then you won't be getting full value out of it.

As far as my experience, this is redundant. I have yet to hear someone buy a Meade, particularly the 10" LX200, and have it work out of the box for as long as they own it. In every case I know, the scope has been back and forth to Meade for repair or repalcement for at least 18 months before they get it right. This includes the visitor center on Kitt Peak, and they know a thing or two about scopes. (Their 16" LX200 has since been replaced for reliability issues.)

The ETX is a fine scope optically, as are most of the SCT's, but the Autostar crashes or flat doesn't work, and the drive electronics blow up, respectively.

Don't get me started on the "Customer Service" phone calls...

[GazOC]

There is an astro society in Liverpool (and Chester), I'll try a dig the addresses out.

[Mulberry]

that would be great Gazonc, thank you. I've tried their website but it is very out of date.

[GazOC]

Here you go, the Chester one looks 'current' at least

http://ccgi.fedastro.org.uk/public/xfas/society.php#England

[Mulberry]

Glad (and rather relieved) you've had good exps of meade telescopes4u -- what scopes do you have?

MANY thanks for finding the Chester details GazOC -- i'll get in touch.

One more thing it would be great to have advice on is this: I know the ETX is a Maksutov Cassegrain but does this make it a refractor or a reflector? Or is it neither?!!

[GazOC]

Strickly speaking its both, they are 'compound scopes'. They have a both a front lens and a rear mirror.