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the drive control keys can be changed. To reverse the button logic of the hand control, press the MENU button
and select
Direction Buttons
from the Utilities menu. Use the Up/Down arrow keys (10) to select either the
azimuth (left and right) or altitude (up and down) button direction and press ENTER. Pressing ENTER again will
reverse the direction of the hand control buttons from their current state. Direction Buttons will only change the
eyepiece rates (rate 1-6) and will not affect the slew rates (rate 7-9).
Goto Approach -
Lets the user define the direction that the telescope will approach when slewing to an
object. This allows the user the ability to minimize the effects of backlash For example, if your telescope is
back heavy from using heavy optical or photographic accessories attached to the back, you would want to set
your altitude approach to the negative direction. This would ensure that the telescope always approaches an
object from the opposite direction as the load pulling on the scope. Similarly, if using the NexStar polar aligned
on a wedge, you would want to set the azimuth approach to the direction that allows the scope to compensate for
different load level on the motors and gears when pointing in different parts of the sky.
To change the goto approach direction, simply choose
Goto Approach
from the
Scope Setup
menu, select either
Altitude or Azimuth approach, choose positive or negative and press Enter.
Autoguide Rate
– Allows the user to set an autoguide rate as a percentage of sidereal rate. This is helpful
when calibrating your telescope to a CCD autoguider for long exposure photography.
Cordwrap -
Cord wrap safeguards against the telescope slewing more than 360º in azimuth and wrapping
the power cord or accessory cables around the base of the telescope. This is useful when powering the
telescope with an optional AC adapter or any time that cables are plugged into the base of the telescope. When
you select “Cordwrap On” from the
Scope Setup
menu, you will be asked to move your telescope opposite to
the no-cross line. The no-cross line is a user definable line that the NexStar will not pass in order to slew to an
object; rather it will slew the long way around in order to get to the object. For example, if you want the no-cross
line to be towards due north, then you would need to slew the telescope in azimuth until the front of the tube is
pointing towards due south. Once in position, press
Enter
to set the no-cross line. By default, the cord wrap
feature is turned on once the telescope is aligned.
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Scrolling through the MENU (9) options will also provide access to several advanced utility functions within the
NexStar such as; Wedge Align, Hibernate and all the optional GPS accessory functions as well.
GPS On/Off
(
with optional CN16 GPS Accessory
)-
Allows you to turn off the optional CN16 GPS
module. When aligning the telescope using AutoAlign, the NexStar still receives information, such as current
time, from the GPS. If you want to use the NexStar database to find the coordinates of a celestial object for a
future date you would need to turn the GPS module off in order to manually enter a date and time other than the
present.
Compass
(
with optional CN16 GPS Accessory
)-
– These compass features that allows you to
automatically move your telescope to the north position and calibrate north for increased accuracy of future
alignments.
•
Find Celestial North
– Automatically finds and moves the telescope to its true north position.
•
Calibrate Compass
- After completing a successful GPS Alignment, use the Calibrate Compass
feature to compensate for magnetic declination errors and local anomalies. This will greatly improve the
accuracy of your initial star alignments the next time you align your telescope.
Alt Sensor
(
with optional CN16 GPS Accessory
)-
Here you have leveling
features that allows you to
automatically move your telescope to its level position and calibrate level for increased accuracy.
•
Find Alt Sensor -
Automatically finds and moves the telescope to its level position.
•
Calibrate Sensor
– After completing a successful Altazimuth alignment this utility function calibrates the
level inside the GPS accessory with the actual position of the optical tube. This level position is then
stored and used to improve the accuracy of future Altazimuth alignments.
