Meade Lx200 Serial Numbers
Seller:astrojul(367)100%, Location:Columbia Station, Ohio, Ships to: Americas & many other countries, Item:223491034595This generic cable is for Meade LX200 Classic. It connects the telescope's RS 232 to any computer serial port. It is 10 ft long. This is not the cheap version made out of telephone wire, We use CAT5 cable. The cable has been tested and is guaranteed to work. Works with GPS version. Includes Velcro strap.Condition:New, Model:507, Country/Region of Manufacture:United States, MPN:Does Not Apply, Brand:Generic
I am fascinated by astronomy since the first time I looked to the night sky. Recently, I bought a 8' Newtonian telescope that came with a Dobsonian mount. It's a nice mount (cheap, portable and very easy to use), but to get what you want to see, you need to know the sky like the palm of your hands (which can be a problem to a beginner like me..!).
To help you to know the sky, there are several software's you can use and stellarium is my favorite one. Stellarium is an open source project with a lot of helpful astronomy features, including a plugin that allow a connection between a computer and a telescope controller (like celestron, meade or sky-watcher).
This allows the telescope to be remotely aligned and operated over a long distance (even thousands of miles), by using a modem link to the telescope's RS-232 serial interface. In this way Meade 16' LX200 telescopes may be operated through a pre-programmed sequence of, for example, CCD imaging, without a human operator being present in the observatory. Star Cross-Reference Data For LX200 Users. I have a 10' LX200 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope manufactured by Meade Instruments Corporation in the USA. It is a wonderful instrument that gives me superb views of the heavens - or at least as superb as you can get 10 miles from the centre of London in the UK on those rare ocassions when it's not cloudy!
After a couple of nights using my telescope, I realized that it should be helpful if, at any moment, I can compare my telescope position with the position of the target that I am looking for.
You can say: Yeah! Buy a goto telescope and you will see your problem solved! Well, you are absolutely right!
However, because of my electrical background and because I like to consider myself hobbyist, my first thought was: - I can (and I will) build a DIY controller for my telescope.
Why build a controller instead buying a ready to use one?
- It will be a lot of fun trying to do something new;
- It's a good contribution to learn a lot of new things (otherwise skipped by using a ready to use solution) like: alt-azimuth and celestial coordinates, local sideral time, earth movement, spherical trigonometry;
- You can control your own budget and keep it below 50USD;
- Your telescope will be customized to fit your needs;
- Your telescope will become 'famous' among your friends;
- If you are not interested to spend thousands in a go-to mount, this will give you a really good help when you start to point your telescope to the sky;
Meade Lx200 Serial Numbers
This instructable will guide you, step by step, how to complete your own controller using Stellarium (astronomy software) and Arduino (open-source prototyping platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software).
And, why Arduino? Well, there is not a simple answer for that... I personally prefer Arduino for several reasons, including:
- It's cheap and easy to find;
- It's an open source project;
- Have a huge community and tons of information online;
- It's easy to find libraries that can help you using a lot of different things;
- You can easily add a lot of shields and sensors specially designed for Arduino, or you can adapt others;
- For most of the projects, it's reliable enough;
- It's very versatile and flexible (I/O ports, communication, etc);
- It's user friendly;
- Uses 'C' as programming language;
- It's easy to interact with I/O ports, both digital and analog;
Now, that you are already introduced to this 'little' project, a summary of what you need to do is:
- Find a way to place 2 position sensors (encoders) to read azimuth and altitude;
- Connect them to a controller like Arduino;
- Build the hardware interface (elementary electronics);
- Program the controller to calculate coordinates and communicate with a computer;
- Install and config Stellarium to work together with your controller;
It will cost you some time and (a lot...of) patience, but you will be pleased with the result. Watch the video above and...
- It will be worth it!