Pointing problems

[NickMorris]

Hi All,

I have Meade LX200rGPS and cannot seem to align it correctly.

During the auto alignment the brightest star seems to be miles away each time, probably 15degrees. After auto alignment it doesnt seem to find anything.

Anyone had this probelm b4?

tnx

photonboy

[Cornelius Varley]

I don't have a Meade LX200 but it could be a time thing. 15 degrees equals 1 hour of the earth's rotation, so I suspect that the time settings in the HC are out by 1 hour.

Peter

[Capricorn]

15 degrees is just right for either wrong DST or wrong time zone.

The time zone is GMT, and DST is ON.

Easy to do at this time of the year as people realise that we are not operating GMT as in time, so set it for GMT+/-1. Problem is GMT is really a geographic location and that doesn't alter.

[NickMorris]

Thanks for the replies,

Will check it out tonight but weird about the time as it gets thetime from gps and have set daylight saving to on through keypad.

will report back......

cheers

photonboy

[Capricorn]

When you think about it why enter the time zone as it has the Lat+Long. It is I suspect so that it knows how much time to allow for DST, Europe operates CET but spans more then a one hour time zone. So in places like the Canaries I guess that 2 hour compensation has to be applied by the scope to get some idea of it's LST.

Best thing is simply supply all the information and don't get smart. Recall someone being smart and changed the time zone so they didn't have to apply DST. Then when the clocks changed back to GMT the scope wouldn't operate as they had no way to apply -DST.

Would have thought that the gps supplies UT/GMT so why you need to say DST or not I have no idea. Legacy software?

[NickMorris]

Hiya,

okay tested tonight but no joy. Time is correct and tried with DST off and on and also checked the GPS info is correct too. Tried manual input but no good either.

One question oabout etiquette, is this posted in the correct forum or should it be in the equpment sections?

cheers

photonboy

[Capricorn]

You haven't mentioned the time zone.

If you were on the meridian in Greenwich then you would enter a time and the scope would allow 1 hours difference for local time to GMT/UT. We are running on BST.

If you were on the meridian outside of Paris then the scope has to allow 2 hours time difference for the local time to GMT/UT. Europe (most) is running on CET.

So one line of latitude but a different local time and hence different compensation applied.

The GPS will provide Lat and Long but it will need the time zone that the scope is physically located in in order to perform the local to GMT/UT conversion.

When did you enter initially the location data into the handset?

[NickMorris]

Hi Thanks for the responses,

I understand about time zones and mentioned that I had played with DST (daylight saving time) settings on the scope.

I have now found the solution is to "Calibrate Sensors" in the Autostar menu (from reading other posts). As soon as I did this, objects went straight into the eyepiece after a goto.

cheers for all your help everyone,

photonboy