USER OBSERVATIONS Last updated: 16 September 2009

Subject:	ETX-LS Feedback - Mike in San Jose, California
Sent:	Tuesday, September 15, 2009 15:46:11
From:	Michael Bailey (mbailey@amalfisemi.com)
After reading all the postings, I thought I would add my own experience.

I purchased an ETX-LS about 4 weeks ago (from OptCorp), and finally had
a good opportunity to try it out last night with no Moon to degrade
seeing conditions.  In San Jose we have a lot of light pollution, and I
also had some scattered clouds to deal with.

The ETX powered up and failed to get a GPS fix (as others have noted),
and asked me to manually entire the location and time.  Since I read all
the postings recently, I avoided the mistake of misinterpreting the
"Daylight Time" prompt, and entered "yes".  The scope found north
(checked against Polaris), tilt, and tip, and then slewed to the
alignment stars.  It was satisfied with the two stars, and reported a
successful alignment.

I slewed first to Jupiter and it was right there, slightly off-center in
a Televue Ethos 13mm eyepiece.  I estimated that the scope had made a
pointing error of about 1/5 of the true field, which is 1.3 degrees (if
I did the calculation correctly).  This was pretty good since the 2
alignment stars were on the opposite side of the sky.

I decided then to take the Guided Tour, but before doing that I selected
the High Precision Alignment mode.  This turned out to be a good choice,
as the scope was never more than 1/6 of the field offset from dead
center for any of the objects in the Tour.  Note that if the Tour item
is a star, it actually skips the star-centering step used in this mode,
and just points at the star in question.  I assume Meade did this
because the stars in the Tour are the brighter ones (e.g., Vega).  An
object that I have found to be difficult to locate is the Andromeda
Galaxy, since it is faint and large.  With the combination of the High
Precision Alignment and the Televue eyepiece (better contrast), the
scope put me right on top of the Galaxy, with no apparent pointing
error.  I could also see the companion galaxy.

However, I found a bug in the software, because apparently the High
Precision Alignment mode does not work when viewing the planets, and I
consistently got an error that the planet in question was still below
the horizon.  Of course, right now Jupiter was right above me at 9:30
pm.  This was corrected by turning off the mode, but I would still like
to see this bug fixed.

So the imager-based alignment works as advertised, but so far not the
GPS.  In my case, since I was next to my house it may have had
difficulty getting the fix, but I am considering contacting Meade based
on what I have been reading in these posts.

By the way, the optical quality is superb  I observed perfect
diffraction rings on both sides of the focus point, indicated that the
scope was properly collimated.  I also noticed that this held out to
near the edge of my field of view both with the Meade-supplied 26mm
Plossl and with my Televue (well they were pretty expensive!).

I think they will clear out all the bugs in due time.  So I'm not too
worried about the GPS, since the features I like about this telescope (I
had an 8-inch LX200GPS previously) are the imager-based alignment, and
the portability of the telescope and tripod.  My previous telescope was
very heavy and difficult to set up (nearly 60 lb).  But they should fix
the GPS.
 
Michael J. Bailey

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