I love a good telescope, and have an off again, on again interest for all things astronomy. Of course, the hardest thing about using a telescope is finding the celestial targets. Technology has helped greatly with that task, but it usually requires the user to find reference stars before the telescope will auto-locate. But things just got even easier.
Meade’s 6″ ETX-LS telescope is the first scope available to consumers to automatically find the stars (and more) for you without a setup requirement. After you select your desired object, the telescope self-rotates into general position by use of its built-in GPS and compass. Once in the neighborhood, the telescope takes a picture of the sky and uses that image to calculate the exact position for your viewing pleasure. As a cool bonus, the camera serves to give you pictures of your findings, saving it to a SD Card.
While that in itself is a lot of gee whiz factor, the telescope will also play audio of your selection, something great for the budding astronomer. It can even play informative video clips if you have a monitor handy. Wow, early in my astronomy pursuit I spent a lot of time in finding the target star, if indeed it was the correct star. Now you can push the button, get a picture and a guided tour.
Can it get any easier than this? (Probably at some point, but as to how is a mystery at the moment.)
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