[Laser] Telescope & GPS interface

[Phil Lefever]

Hi Terry,

I seriously doubt that you will be able to easily
connect a typical GPS to the stock Celestron computer.
The entire electronics package they use tends to be
pretty proprietary. I'm sure it could be done by an
electronics wiz thats up for a challenge though.

Now that said, why do you "need" a GPS connected to
the telescope? The whole GPS enabled scope thing is
really only a marketing ploy dreamed up by Meade and
Celestron. I used to manage a retail astronomy store
so I can tell you how their marketing works! I remember
when the first Meade LX200GPS scopes came out. The
old non GPS ones worked as well as the ones with the
"gimmick".

Of course a GPS aided scope is a convenience, mostly
for setting the time, but if you are using the scope
for astronomy the need to know exact time/location is
almost nil. The pointing accuracy depends solely on an
accurate star alignment. If you were attempting to
track satellites then this is a different issue! Of
course then you  will find driving the scope from a
laptop is better as the stock computer isn't really
up to this task.

If you have further telescope/astronomy questions I
will gladly take them up with you via private email
to avoid the offtopic traffic on the group.

73 & Clear Skies

Phil




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Phil Lefever - Burnsville, MN
Amateur Radio Callsign - KB0NES EN34jt
C8-SP XT-10 C102 80WV