Meade Ds2090 Ongoing Review

[admin]

thats great news Speed. I would love to hear about MySky and the modification you mention with the PVC.

I recently purchased a cheap DSLR (Pentax K100D) which takes superb photos even in high ISO settings and I am hoping eventually to get a more portable SC Goto/tracking scope for photography and quick viewing sessions.

I read a quick summary of the Deep sky imager from Meade here:
Meade Instruments Corporation - Meade Deep Sky Imager


MySky seems quite different from the imager software which included a CCD i think, however it looks quite interesting and great fun. let us know all about it as it is new and few have heard about it or seen it! Let me know if this is the mysky you are talking about here:
Meade mySKY

[speedwerksrc]

admin,
yes, thats the one. Sorry I have not been on in a bit. I just had lower back surgery on monday which has had me hung up in bed quite a bit the last week. I did take some pictures of the scope and the mysky I am going to start uploading now. I apologize for the delay but as soon as I am able to bend to the eyepiece again, the review will resume. I have been able to play with the mysky some so i can begin to elaborate on this also. I am going to get these pictures uploaded now so they can be posted. If they are too big you can take them down or resize them to your standards. I am back, and the review shall resume.

[speedwerksrc]

This is the assembled scope. I will get better pictures when I can stand up for a bit without losing balance and the weather is nicer.

This is the motor and computer control center for the telescope. It really is not much. Just the power switch and the ports to connect the autostar and an aux attachment.

Small accessory table. Holds the compass used to align the scope to the north heading for the autostar and also can hold 2 of the 5 additional eyepieces supplied with the scope. The notch out holds the autostar controller.

[speedwerksrc]

This is the autostar controller.

Autostar controller switched on

This is a side view of the MySky.

View of screen and control side of the mysky. I tried taking a picture of this on but the pixels of the screen of MySky and the camera fight each other. I may have to make a video of this to show the basics of the mysky.

Hopefully this wil be enough to hold yall over for a bit. I will continue to work on the review with pictures and some youtube videos tonight and into tommorow

[speedwerksrc]

I had the mysky out toniight to give it a test run on 2 objects and play with it a bit. When you turn on the mysky, you are given 2 options. One is to enter the time date and location manually or to get it from GPS. In the last week of having the mysky, and before my back surgery, I was having issues with the mysky aquiring a gps lock. it would just not lock up. i also was having an issue with the mysky freezing on the manual date entry. I ended up taking this back to the store 3 times in attempt to solve the problem. The store ended up having the meade rep from this area come into the store and i was able to sit and speak with him regarding the unit and the issues. It was brought to my attn. that the GPS function on the MySky Plus, which is what I have, is no longer used. Instead it is run off magnetic sensors which know where you are pointing in the sky by some sort of compass internal to the unit itself. This made me nervous at first, but I struck a deal with the store if I was not satisfied with the results, I could return the unit and reclaim all the money spent on this. Thankfully, I did not have to exercise this. I had this out last night and tonight, and so far, the moon, and other things I know exactly where they are, were accuratly displayed by pointing the unit without the use of GPS. The reason behind meade dropping the gps support for the mysky plus was imminent issues with users complaining of insane lock times. The sd card in the mysky is updatable on the meade site to add in the update to make the mysky load.
When looking at the screen, you are presented with a globe which resembles Stellarium in a way. It shows the solar system from the area you are standing in. Simply pointing the unit up down left or right pans your display. Using the led sights on the top, you simply point the unit like a gun, pull the trigger and the unit will analyze what you are pointing at. I pointed at the moon and jupiter, and got accurate descriptions each time. I tried each 3 times after moving locations each time. It worked. I am impressed so far. Anyway, there are many options to explore. Some I have explored so far are:
There is a guided tour of the night sky-this shows the objects easily visible to the naked eye. You simply click what you want to see, point the unit, and an arrow moves around the screen and you follow it until it turns to a bullseye. When it is a bullseye, the device is centered on the object within 1/100th of an inch(just a guess, but its damn close).
Another option I like is if you want more info on the object, and provided you have the supplied headphones plugged in, the unit will tell you a brief history and info on the object.
Another feature, which I am yet to delve into, is the integration between the unit and the autostar. Once you locate an object in the mysky and identify, you have the option to point the scope to that. I cannot lift the scope outside after surgery, so this one will have to wait. I can however say so far, that it does slew the scope as I messed around a bit inside with this today. I am going to play a little more with this and try and uncover some more tricks and secrets and add them up here.

[admin]

Hi Speed, welcome back!
sorry to hear of your injury i hope you are better. i am actually studying to be a medical doctor here in Sydney so if you have any questions i may be able to forward them to a good source. I did read your pm but for some reason my admin pming function is messed up will have to fix it

great reviews on both products though!

the unit and autostar connection would be interesting if you could eloborate when you get better.

hope you get better soon

[speedwerksrc]

thanks. i am mobile now. been a long week but starting to be able to stand with little pain. antibiotics are amazing. actually, surgery in this day and age is amazing. I am only 25 also so it helps with the healing. Still, I dont wish this on my worst enemy. Its a cloudy night here so I havent been outside, but I will def. jump on the demo of the integration of the 2 units. Sydney huh? Sounds like alot of fun. My brother did some semestersr abroad down under in sydney and loved it. What aspect of medicine are you going for? Where are you from originally?

[admin]

hey thats awesome.
Sydney is very nice weather wise but a very expensive little city. My wife and I would do a lot of star / planet viewing however now we couldnt afford to ship our 10" dobson here nor yet afford to buy a new scope.

Originally we are from Canada, and I dont know yet what im going to do but im currently going to 3rd year.

[speedwerksrc]

thats cool admin. Dont worry, you will eventually get the dob there. Just give it some time. I always wanted to live in aus. but I dont think that will ever happen. I will however make it a point to have a visit one day. Have you checked the post on moderators lately? I put a post in there. I think I am feeling up to a night outside with the scope tomm night weather depending so expect to see some input on the integration between units. Hope everything is well down under.

[admin]

hey speed any news on viewing with the Meade?

any photos too?