: I just received and installed my Magellan II on LX50. I made my own serial port cord from a store bought 6 pin phone cord and the end off of an old mouse cable. Soldered leads together as detailed in their manual. I don't have Meade software, but am trying to use it with Skymap program. Haven't got it to work well, does give me a cursor on laptop screen, but nowhere near accurate. I'm a real novice with the scope, have only had it for a couple of months, and I'm a real infant with the Magellan. Got any tips? Thanks. Dean

All, I have a Magellan I working with Skymap Pro 5.0. As you've pointed out, the Magellan by itself seems to work great, but its not great with the computer. I have been unable to get the computer to track the telescopes position on the screen unless I select "Find Object" on the Magellan. Once that's set, it tracks the scope just fine. Anyone have any ideas about why it doesn't track as soon as the connection is opened?

As for the accuracy questions. I haven't paid much attention to the accuracy of the screnn against the sky on the map; however its pretty good or I would have noticed a problem. One comment I saw posted a year or so ago was that with the Magellan alignment process folks tend to get a bit sloppy about scope axis alignments. I think the screen errors are related to scope axis misalignments. Its not clear that the data sent to the computer via the serial port has been "corrected" for misalignments. I'll have to do some experiments to see if data bears this out.

I too would welcome discussion with fellow Magellan users. Feel free to e-mail me any time.

Larry