Meade AutoStar 497 for ETX-90EC, ETX-105EC, ETX-125EC (709942922004) Reviews

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Wize has read 14 reviews

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This was by far the best purchase of any astro equipment ever! The Autostar is worth every penny and then some. Sure, it frustrated me at the beginning until I got it down to a T and it from Amazon.com easy to use and great for educational purposes June 14, 2000 The Autostar is so decadent! from Amazon.com I first grew acquainted with Autostar about 6 months ago (albeit the 494 model) on the ETX-70 AT, and had some accuracy issues the first few times I used it. They were easily fixed, though, with a good drive training (on a power pole about a mile and a half away) and careful motor calibration. from Amazon.com We just purchased the Meade 90 ETX telescope and decided to get the computer controller too - and man are we glad that we did. We're novices with the telescope, so finding specific objects in the night sky is a challenge.

With the autostart, after taking about 15 minutes to go through the alignment process, we can just tell the Autostar what we want to find and it moves the telescope to the object for us.

from Amazon.com however, I'm a believer in the other viewpoint. I think go-to capability opens up astronomy to the masses and brings the universe just that little bit closer to everyone. I purchased the Autostar for my ETX about a year ago and it has had extensive use. Out of the many many times I have used the autostar with the scope, I estimate it has performed as desired on 90% of my viewing nights. from Amazon.com "Goto" Telescopes and controllers have been around for quite a number of years now, but are normally very expensive. The Autostar has 95% of the functionality of the expensive hardware at a small fraction of their price. from Amazon.com Definitely NOT for the plain John Doe. You will not be able to align this correctly on the first, second, or third try. from Amazon.com Also the setup requires knowing true compass direction, the bright stars overhead, and it helps to have a GPS or at least a good guess at your lat. and long.. I have a Star Atlas 2000.0, but do not have all the names of the stars requested by the Autostar during setup. I recommend picking the 2-star mode (NOT the EASY mode) and select widely separated stars that 1) you can recognize and 2) are near the area you want to view... from Amazon.com I'm a rank astronomy novice. I read the Autostar manual word for word twice before I dared to hook it to my ETX-90 scope. So far the Autostar is far far too complicated for this CPA, MBA to understand. from Amazon.com Unfortunately, unless one heeds this message, one will be as disappointed as myself after purchasing the Autostar. The handheld unit seems to function properly, however, all of the components required for computer control do not come with this unit. from Amazon.com