USER OBSERVATIONS Last updated: 16 January 2006

Subject:	ETX-125 PE Initial experiences
Sent:	Thursday, January 12, 2006 22:04:39
From:	Tom Coombs (tom@coombs-online.net)
I took delivery of a new ETX-125 PE on Monday and would like to provide
my experiences.

First night:

Configured the 125 with my Zip Code and it detected the time correctly.
It found North, Picked two stars (sort of) Sirius and another one. 
Neither star was even close to the star finder.

Tried to re-align, no success, spent the rest of the evening looking at
the moon and Saturn (WOW!, I could even see the Casini divisions very
very clearly...)

Second night:

Took your advice, played with the scope indoors, checked the firmware
load (it was the latest), reloaded the rom for grins and did a calibrate
motors.

Went outside, did a calibrate sensors, Polaris was sort of close about
10' off left and low, centered it, did an auto align.  The alignment
stars were still nowhere close.

Tried more gotos, everything was off by about 20' left and 20' low. 
Reset the scope...hmmmmm...are we in or out of daylight savings.  An aha
moment, I had told the scope that we were in daylight savings.  Reset,
set zip, set daylight savings to "off".  Calibrate motors.  Calibrate
Sensors...dammit, the clouds have come in.

Third night:

Went outside, wonderfully clear night, the clearest so far.  Continued
where I left off, calibrate sensors, centered Polaris, automatic
alignment (first star a little left and low, the second star, center of
the star finder, center of the eyepiece.

Did a "goto mars".  It's in the center of the star finder and inside the
eyepiece (cool!), Did a "goto moon", a little left, little low, in the
eyepiece (even better), Did a "goto Sirius", center of the start finder,
center of the eyepiece

Spent the rest of this evening trawling around the various stars,
constellations etc.  The Great Orion Nebula looked awesome, Pleiades was
neat, Saturn with the 9.4mm plossel and the Barlow was truly awesome.
The only reason I came in was due to some high level clouds coming in
and the damned 'skitos.

To sum up, without the information contained on this site, I would have
been lost and probably very disappointed with my experiences, it just
shows that a little education, reading and perseverance is absolutely
required and sites such as this go a long way to filling in the gaps in
the manuals.

Thanks for saving me.

TC.

-- 
Tom Coombs

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