Meade LX200 R manual

Instruction Manual 8", 10", 12", 14", 16" LX200 ® R Adv anced Ritche y-Chrétien T elescopes with GPS and A utoStar ® II Hand Controller (800) 626-3233 www .meade.com[...]

W ARNING! Ne ver use a Meade ® LX200R ™ T elescope to look at the Sun! Looking at or near the Sun will cause instant and irreversible damage to your eye. Eye damage is often painless, so there is no warning to the observer that damage has occurred until it is too late. Do not point the telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telesc[...]

Quick-Start Guide .......................................................... 4 T elescope Features ...................................................... 6 AutoStar ® II Features ...................................................... 9 Getting Started ..............................................................12 Parts Listing ..................[...]

- 4 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. QUICK-ST ART GUIDE It is recommended that you attach the supplied tripod to the LX200R for observing. Perform the telescope and AutoStar II setup indoors in the light so that[...]

- 5 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. 9. T ighten, to a firm feel only , the R.A. and Dec. locks. Remove the dust cover from the end of the telescope tube. Place the 26mm eyepiece ( F ) into the diagonal prism ( [...]

- 6 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this tele- scope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. TELESCOPE FEA TURES AutoStar II Hand Controller . See page 9. (not shown, on left fork arm) Fig. 1 : The LX200R T elescope; Computer Control Panel (inset); AutoStar II Hand[...]

- 7 - LX200R: YOUR PERSONAL WINDOW TO THE UNIVERSE The Meade LX200R models are extremely versatile, high-resolution telescopes. With pushbutton controls, precision GPS alignment, zero image-shift microfocusing, true- level and North electronic sensors, automatic tracking of celestial objects, periodic error correction for both axes, and a library o[...]

- 8 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your ey e. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. B. 12vDC P ower Connector : Provides a connection so that the telescope assembly may be powered from a standard 1 15v AC home outlet using the optional #547 Power Adapter wi[...]

- 9 - Fig. 2: The AutoStar II Handbo x. AUTOST AR II FEA TURES Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your ey e. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving.            W ant to lear n more about downloading the latest updates of AutoStar II[...]

- 10 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this tele- scope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. The AutoStar II system provides control of virtually every telescope function. The AutoStar II handbox has soft-touch keys designed to have a positive feel. The LCD (Liqui[...]

- 11 - 5 SS : Press to display the Solar System library . 6 ST AR: Press to display the Star library . 7 RET (Reticle): Press to display the Reticle Control menu. 8 IC : Press to display the Index Catalog library . 9 NGC (New General Catalog): Press to display the NGC catalog library . 0 LIGHT : Press to turn on and off the red utility light on the[...]

- 12 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. P ar ts Listing Getting the telescope ready for first observations requires only a few minutes. When first opening the packing box, note carefully the following parts:  L[...]

- 13 - other hand, pull directly “up” on the central hub of the extension strut system. This operation will cause the tripod legs to move inward to a collapsed position. Notes Concerning the T ripod: If the tripod does not seem to extend or collapse easily , do not f orce the tripod legs in or out. By follo wing the instructions abov e, the tri[...]

- 14 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. Note: The A utoStar II handbo x and the microf ocuser do not require batteries; the telescope supplies their power . 4. Attach micr ofocuser: Remove the dust cap from the re[...]

- 15 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this tele- scope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. Fig. 11: Viewfinder Assemb ly . Collimation Screws Mounting Slot Viewfinder Eyepiece T rack Fig. 12: Viewfinder collimation scre ws and ey epiece. Fig. 13a & 13b: Jupi[...]

- 16 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. Important Note: Objects appear upside- down and re versed left-f or- right when obser ved in the viewfinder . Objects viewed through the telescope ey e- piece when inser ted[...]

- 17 - 9. Bring the object into focus (see below). Focusing the Eyepiece Using the Micr ofocuser The LX200R zero image-shift microfocuser ( 24, Fig. 1 ) allows you to obtain the most pre- cise image focus possible during visual, photographic, and CCD applications, main- taining precise and "jiggle-free" image centering on even the smalles[...]

- 18 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your ey e. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. Observe the Moon Point your telescope at the Moon (note that the Moon is not visible every night) and practice using the Arrow keys, the microfocuser and the slew speeds to[...]

- 19 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your ey e. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. 5. "Automatic Alignment" displays. The system now performs the following routines (press any AutoStar II key to abort Automatic Alignment; see IMPORT ANT NOTE , a[...]

- 20 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your ey e. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. 6. The telescope now slews to the second alignment star . AutoStar displays “Center Brightest Star: Press ENTER” displays. Use the Arrow keys to center the alignment st[...]

- 21 - 5. Press MODE to return to the T our list. Press the Scroll keys to scroll through the list. Press ENTER when you find the next object you wish to observe. 6. Press and hold down MODE for two seconds to leave the Guided T our menu. Other Guided T ours are available, such as "How Far is Far" and "A Star's Life." If yo[...]

- 22 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this tele- scope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. It is important to understand that menu selections are set in a loop ( Fig. 16 ). This means that pressing the Scroll Down key ( 7, Fig. 2 ) cycles down through all the av[...]

- 23 - 4. Press the Scroll Down key once to display the "Sunset" option in the Event menu. 5. Press the ENTER key to choose the "Sunset" option and move down another level. 6. AutoStar II calculates the Sunset time based on the current date, time, and loca- tion. AutoStar II then displays the results of the calculation. 7. Press[...]

- 24 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this tele- scope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. Sunrise Sun T ransit Sunset Moonrise Moon T ransit Moonset Moon Phases Next Full Moon Next Ne w Moon Next 1st Qtr Next 3rd Qtr Meteor Showers Quadrantids Lyrids Etc. Solar[...]

- 25 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. Object Menu Almost all observing with AutoStar II is performed using the Object menu category . ( Note: Exceptions include Guided T our and Landmark Sur ve y . ) See GO T O [...]

- 26 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this tele- scope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. Identify: An exciting feature for an observer who wants to scan the night sky and start exploring. After the telescope has been properly aligned, use the AutoStar II Arrow[...]

- 27 - Glossary Menu The Glossary menu provides an alphabetical listing of definitions and descriptions for common astronomical terms and AutoStar II functions. Access directly through the Glossary menu or through hypertext words embedded in AutoStar II. A h yper text w ord is any word in [ brackets ], usually found when using the AutoStar II Help [...]

- 28 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this tele- scope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. Sleep Scope: A power saving option that shuts down AutoStar II and the telescope without forgetting its alignment. With "Sleep Scope" selected, press ENTER to ac[...]

- 29 - (Note that it does not prevent you from performing a manual slew past this limit.) This is useful when you have a camera or other peripheral attached to the tele- scope—you can prevent it from striking the telescope base. 90 (straight up) is the maximum value that can be entered.  Mount Lower Limit: Allows you enter a number from 0 to 9[...]

- 30 -  Rever se U/D: Reverses the functions of the Up and Down Arrow keys for con- trolling the telescope's motion ( i.e. , the Up key moves the telescope down ).  Home Sensors: T urns off or on the T rue North and T rue Level sensors, if pre- ferred, for Easy , One-Star , and T wo-Star alignment. User must then manually level the teles[...]

- 31 -  All: Everything—user-defined information and AutoStar II software—is sent to another AutoStar II. Download: T ransfers information from a personal computer or another AutoStar II. During the operation, the warning “Downloading Do Not T urn Off” appears.  Catalogs: Receives only user-defined object information, such as new sate[...]

- 32 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. ADV ANCED AUTOST AR II FEA TURES Before trying out the examples in this section, familiarize yourself with the basic oper- ations of AutoStar II described earlier in this ma[...]

- 33 - 1 1. Press MODE. "Site: Edit" displays. 12. Using the Arrow keys, scroll to "Site: Select." The site you have just edited dis- plays. Press ENTER to select the site. Creating User Objects In this procedure, you will enter coordinates of celestial objects that do not appear in any of the AutoStar II libraries. Y ou will en[...]

- 34 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this tele- scope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. Observing Satellites In this procedure, you will prepare your telescope to observe a satellite pass. 1. Navigate to the "Object: Satellite" menu option and press[...]

- 35 - those in the Landmark database. Be sure to change this option back to "Astronomical" when you wish to view celestial objects again. 3. Press MODE once. "Select Item: Setup" displays. 4. Press the Scroll Down key once and "Select Item: Object" displays. Press ENTER. "Object: Solar System" displays. 5. P[...]

- 36 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your ey e. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. In this procedure, you will center an object you wish to have identified by AutoStar II in the telescope eyepiece and use the "Identify" menu to find out informat[...]

Alternate Alt/Az Alignments If you would rather set up your telescope without using automatic alignment, AutoStar II offers alternative alignment methods for both alt/az and equatorial mounting. During the One-Star and T wo-Star alt/az alignment procedures, you will (unlike the Automatic and Easy alignment procedures) manually place the telescope i[...]

- 38 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this tele- scope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. Note: AutoStar II locates align- ment stars based on the date, time, and location entered. The alignment stars may change from night to night. All that is required is for [...]

- 39 - P eriodic Error Correction If you wish to perform high-precision astrophotography , you may wish to "train" your telescope in order to keep objects that you are imaging dead center in the telescope's mirror during the photographic exposure. Periodic error correction (PEC) helps to remove the slight perturbations from center th[...]

- 40 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your ey e. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. 2 Fig. 21: LX200R with #62 T -Adapter: (1) camera adapter , (2) T - mount, (3) camera body . Fig. 22: Example of vignetting. 1 PHOTOGRAPHY 3 Y ou may perform through-the-te[...]

- 41 - Photography with a Digital Camera Although digital cameras still cannot match the quality of images provided by tradi- tional 35mm cameras, they provide some significant advantages to the casual astrophotographer: Y ou do not have to develop the images (instant images), lower costs, computer and internet readiness. And because unwanted photo[...]

- 42 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this tele- scope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. • Magic Eye software-assisted focusing. • Automatic and manual exposure control from .001 to 15 seconds (up to 450x longer than web cams). • Automatically takes mult[...]

- 43 - OPTIONAL ACCESSORIES A wide assortment of professional Meade accessories is available for the LX200R tel- escope models. The premium quality of these accessories is well-suited to the quali- ty of the instrument itself. Consult the Meade General Catalog for complete details on these and other accessories. Meade Series 4000 Eyepieces: Fig. 27[...]

- 44 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this tele- scope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. Series 4000 8 - 24mm Zoom Eyepiece: The internal zoom optics of this eyepiece move on smooth, precisely machined surfaces which maintain optical collimation at all zoom se[...]

- 45 - Fig. 32: Illuminated Reticle Ey epiece. Piggybac k Brackets: Piggyback photography is one of the most popular and easiest ways to get started in astrophotography . Attach your 35mm camera, with its own 35mm-to-250mm lens, atop your LX200R in equatorial mode, and guiding the camera through the main telescope, wide-field photos of the Milky W [...]

- 46 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your ey e. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. MAINTENANCE LX200R telescopes are precision optical instruments designed to yield a lifetime of rewarding applications. Given the care and respect due any precision instrum[...]

With the star or hot spot centered, de-focus the image. Y ou will notice that the out of focus star image looks like a ring of light surrounding a dark central spot; the dark cen- tral spot is in fact the shadow of the secondary mirror . T urn the focus knob until the ring of light fills about 10% of the eyepiece field-diameter . If the dark centra[...]

- 48 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this tele- scope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. i. As a final check of alignment, examine the star image in focus with the higher power eyepiece as suggested (j), under good viewing conditions. The star point should app[...]

- 49 - 8" f/10 LX200R Specifications Optical design ..............................................Advanced Ritchey-Chrétien telescope Clear aperture ..............................................203mm (8") Focal length ................................................2000mm Focal ratio (photographic speed) ................f/10 Resolving p[...]

- 50 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your ey e. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. 12" f/10 LX200R Specifications Optical design ..............................................Advanced Ritchey-Chrétien telescope Clear aperture .......................[...]

- 51 - 16" f/10 LX200R Specifications Optical design ..............................................Advanced Ritchey-Chrétien telescope Clear aperture ..............................................406.4mm (16") Focal length ................................................4064mm Focal ratio (photographic speed) ................f/10 Resolvi[...]

- 52 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. Equatorial Alignment In equatorial (or "polar") Alignment, the telescope is oriented so that the horizontal and vertical axes of the telescope are lined up with th[...]

- 53 - Fig. 40: Section of Right Ascension Setting Circle. Fig. 39: Declination Setting Circle . Fig. 41a: Equatorial W edge for 8" LX200R models. Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your ey e. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. Fig. 41b: The Ultraw edge i[...]

- 54 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this tele- scope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. Lining Up with the Celestial P ole Objects in the sky appear to revolve around the celestial pole. (Actually , celestial objects are essentially “fixed.” Their apparen[...]

- 55 - ting circle and slightly loosen the two bolts located under the knob. Now turn the cir- cle unit until it reads 89.2°, the Declination of Polaris. Then tighten down the two bolts and replace the knurled knob. Should you wish to use the manual setting circles, the R.A. setting circle ( Fig. 40 ) must be calibrated manually on the Right Ascen[...]

- 56 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this tele- scope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. A utoStar II P olar Alignment AutoStar II provides three different (manual) methods for polar alignment: Easy , One- Star and T wo-Star . Easy P olar Alignment T wo alignm[...]

- 57 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this tele- scope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. APPENDIX B: LA TITUDE CHART Latitude Chart for Major Cities of the W orld T o aid in the polar alignment procedure (see page 54), latitudes of major cities around the worl[...]

- 58 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. APPENDIX C: CREA TE YOUR OWN GUIDED TOUR Creating your own Guided T our can be an extremely useful tool. Y ou can preprogram a script of objects you wish to view and study o[...]

- 59 - TITLE TEXT USER NGC IC SAO MESSIER CALDWELL PLANET MOON SA TELLITE ASTEROID COMET LUNAR ECLIPSE METEOR SHOWER DEEP SKY CONSTELLA TION ST AR LANDMARK DEFINE PICK ONE/PICK END AUTO SLEW ON/OFF #END Description String: Description of an object. Must be surrounded by quotation marks. If the description is longer than one line, each line must end[...]

- 60 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this tele- scope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. PLANET "name" Enter PLANET and then the name of the desired planet in quotes. AutoStar II provides the user with a description of the selected planet from its da[...]

- 61 - PICK ONE AUTO SELECT MESSIER 13 AUTO SELECT MESSIER 15 AUTO SELECT MESSIER 92 AUTO SELECT MESSIER 4 AUTO SELECT MESSIER 68 AUTO SELECT NGC 1234 AUTO SELECT TEXT "None A vailable" "I'm sorry . There are no bright globular" "clusters visible at this time." PICK END AUTO SLEW ON / AUT O SLEW OFF With AUTO SLEW[...]

- 62 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your ey e. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. T rain the telescope motors using AutoStar II. Perform this procedure if you are experiencing any pointing accuracy problems. Fig. 41 depicts the complete Drive T raining p[...]

- 63 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. APPENDIX E: THE MOON MENU The Moon option of the Object menu allows you to observe the moon in a way never possible before. Y ou will be able locate many specific features o[...]

- 64 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. APPENDIX F: 16" LX200R FEA TURES Figure 47: 16" LX200R Computer Control P anel. 16" LX200R Unique Features The 16" LX200R contains, for the most part, th[...]

- 65 - Caution: Ne xt to the f ocus assembly are tw o red slot-head bolts, used only f or saf ety reasons in shipment. Remo ve these bolts bef ore attempting to turn the focus knob . In its place , inser t the rubber plugs pro- vided as a dust protector (these rubber plugs are included with your hard- ware pac kage). The 16” LX200R should ne ver [...]

Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this tele- scope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. T o collapse the tripod (after removing the telescope) for storage, follow these steps: a. Loosen the tension knob and rotate the spreader bar 60° from its assembled position, s[...]

- 67 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this tele- scope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. c. Lock the OT A in place using the four 3/8”-16x3/4” bolts. Thread up the four bolts into the bottom of the Dec. castings, two on each side. Using the supplied hex ke[...]

- 68 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this tele- scope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. APPENDIX G: 14" LX200R FEA TURES 14" LX200R Unique Features The 14" LX200R contains, for the most part, the same features (covered earlier in this manual) a[...]

- 69 - APPENDIX H: DE-ROT A TER AND MICROFOCUSER ASSEMBL Y When using a de-rotater , it is important to attach the microfocuser so that it is backed off slightly from the de-rotater . If the microfocuser is flush against the de-rotater , the assembly will not work properly . This is true also with other accessories that may attach up flush against [...]

- 70 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your eye. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. APPENDIX I: Smart Mount Introduction Smart Mount improves the pointing accuracy of your LX200R telescope's "Go to" sytem. Despite careful efforts to calibrate[...]

- 71 - P ermanently Mounted Scopes For permanently mounted telescopes, it is not necessary to have more than one model unless the weight and balance of auxiliary equipment introduces balance or flexure changes that significantly affect pointing. The best practice is to train the Smart Mount and then run a couple of sessions with Update enabled. The[...]

- 72 - Looking at or near the Sun will cause irreversible damage to your ey e. Do not point this telescope at or near the Sun. Do not look through the telescope as it is moving. In the early 17th century Italian Scientist Galileo, using a telescope smaller than your LX200R , turned it skyward instead of looking at the distant trees and mountains. W[...]

- 73 - Planets Planets change positions in the sky as they orbit around the Sun. T o locate the plan- ets on a given day or month, consult a monthly astronomy magazine, such as Sky and T elescope or Astronomy . Y ou can also consult AutoStar II for information about planets. Scroll to the "Object: Solar System" menu and scroll through the[...]

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14-7206-00 1/06 (800) 626-3233 www .meade.com MEADE LIMITED W ARRANTY Every Meade telescope, spotting scope, and telescope accessory is warranted by Meade Instruments Corporation (“Meade”) to be free of defects in materials and workmanship for a period of ONE YEAR from the date of original purchase in the U.S.A. and Canada. Meade will repair or[...]