Meade 497 AutoStar Autostar Computer Controller

Easy to Use

Just plug the Autostar Controller into a Meade ETX-90EC or ETX-125EC telescope, do a quick telescope alignment that takes less than a minute, and you have an automatic celestial object locating system. Even if you're an astronomical novice, you will soon be locating fascinating celestial objects from commonly observed objects like the rings of Saturn, the satellites of Jupiter and the Orion Nebula, to harder to locate objects like the Ring Nebula in Lyra, the Spiral Galaxy in Triangulum and the Sombrero Galaxy in Virgo. Even very obscure objects near the telescopes visibility threshold such as the diffuse nebula NGC 6559 in Sagittarius, the galactic star cluster NGC 1778 in Auriga and the spiral galaxy NGC 3310 in Ursa Major are a breeze to locate and track with the Autostar Computer Controller. Any of the Autostar's database objects can be called up and entered in seconds. Then you simply press the GO TO button and watch as the telescope automatically moves to the object and places it in the field of view. If you add the optional AstroFinder software and connection kit, you can interface Autostar with your PC. With an AstroFinder star chart on your monitor, all you have to do is use your mouse to click on the object you wish to view and Autostar will take you there.

It's full of stars!

Included within the Autostar's enormous database is the entire Index Catalog (IC) of 5,386 objects, including galaxies, nebulae, and star clusters of all types; the complete New General Catalog of 7,840 objects; 109 objects from the Caldwell Catalog of the best objects for small telescopes; the entire Messier Catalog of 110 objects; 943 stars from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) catalog, including 395 double stars, 189 variable stars and other stars of special note; 50 Earth orbiting satellites; 26 asteroids, including all of the brightest asteroids; 15 periodic comets; 8 major planets from Mercury to Pluto. In all there are 14,487 total objects in the Autostar's database. It's easy to see why most Autostar users see more celestial objects in one night than most amateur astronomers would view in a lifetime.

Locate by the numbers

In the unlikely event that an object you wish to view is not in the Autostar's database, just enter the objects coordinates (Right Ascension and Declination), press GO TO and the telescope will automatically locate the object and place it in the field of view. Right Ascension (R.A.) and Declination (Dec.) coordinates are easily available from astronomical magazines, websites, bulletin boards, star charts and other sources. This type of object location is particularly useful in viewing aperiodic phenomena like most comets. If you find something you would like to view again, you have the ability to add the locations of up to 200 objects and go back to them at any time.

Tour Guide

Use the GO TO capability to visit the centroids of all 88 constellations and you'll not only learn the locations of the constellations, but the Autostar display will also provide information on the mythology of the constellation and important objects located within it's boundaries. If you're not sure want you want to view, you can take an Autostar Guided Tour where Autostar automatically takes you to the best objects to view on any given night.

Nine speeds & more menus

Autostar also has over twenty other menu options including major event menus with useful information on Moon phases, times of Moonrise, minimums of Algol, equinoxes and more. There are also handy utility functions like a timer, alarm, eyepiece power calculations and others. If you just want to scan to see what you can see, use the Autostar's pushbuttons to move the telescope on either or both axes, simultaneously, at any of nine drive speeds from 2x sidereal to 5 degrees per second.