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I finally started getting the hang of my LXD75/AutoStar last night, being able to grab the combined mount & 120ED in one haul down the steps and onto the sidewalk (where leg placement is marked and then I put two wooden blocks under two of the legs to level it). "Good Enough" for tracking and goto as it turns out. From the living room to tracking on the sidewalk in 5-10 mins!

After picking my alignment stars (Altair and Deneb this timeâ€“my swath of the sky is small), the scope did a fine enough job finding Vega, Albireo and the Double Cluster, but when I went to goto Jupiter, it was WAY off!

The date's correct, as is the time and location. Any idea why it would be so far off? I didn't check the accuracy for any other southern targets. Could that be the problem? That I should have used a further south Alignment star?

Thanks for any suggestions! - j
Fight indignorance! 120ED, 12" f/5 Green Goblin, 6" f/5 Eero2, 4.5" f/8 PortaBowl, 8" f/5 Big Red Ed. The PortaBowl-a $100 4.5" f/8 ball-scope YOU can build!
I vaguely remember reading somewhere that if you're fairly late in the evening to try using the next day's date for planets. Something to do with the way it calcs planet positions.

Also, if you're going to a different area than your alignment stars (especially after a flip), you can re-sync on a star, but I can't remember how to do it and it's not clear in the manual. I wrote it down and I'll check when I get home.

Mike R.
JP Astrocraft Sweet 16 F4 Truss Dob, Anttler DSO 12in F5 Dob DIY Parks 8in F6 Dob, Celestron C4.5 (F8) Celestron CPC 800 (F6.3), Explore Scientific Comet Hunter (6in F4.8) Celestron C6R (6in F8), ES127 F7.5 Essential Triplet Stellarvue SV105 (F7), Stellarvue Nighthawk 2 (F6) CG5, LXD 75, Celestron (Vixen) Polaris, Stellarvue M1 Some Naglers, Panoptics, TV Plossls, some ES82s and a 24/68, a Paracorr and a SIPS
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Oops. The date thing was for the Sky Commander.

Holding Enter down allows you to re-sync. Maybe you could try for a star next to Jupiter to see if it's a problem with that part of the sky, or if it's just calculating the planets wrong.

However, I've noticed a few other quirks with the LXD75, such as at least one wrong Messier object location (can't remember which).

Mike R.
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